


Common Ground

by AxisMage



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, DCU (Comics), Nightwing (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Superboy (Comics), Superman - All Media Types, Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Developing Relationship, Eventual Sex, M/M, Plot, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Threesome - M/M/M, wholesome relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-09-10
Packaged: 2019-06-20 23:28:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 35,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15544575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AxisMage/pseuds/AxisMage
Summary: Jason and Conner have had a hate/dislike relationship for the past two years, one that is well known among their respective teams. They don´t see eye to eye and are fine not giving a darn about each other. Then Dick Grayson barrels into their lives, and for both the good and bad things, Dick is the common ground they need (but more importantly: want)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LorelainMichaelis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LorelainMichaelis/gifts).



> Polyamory, because isn´t that fun? This came out of a conversation with my best friend (as all my ideas do <3) and started as a joke. Jaydick is our OTP, but Conner x Dick holds a very special place in my heart, and I told her, "don´t make me use the Jason/Dick/Conner tag on AO3" and she said, "I want that" and so here we are LOL

Dick Grayson was the most cunning and conniving little shit to ever walk the face of the goddamn Earth. Why it took Jason so long to figure that out, he didn´t know, but now that he had the evidence right in front of his face, he realized he should have noticed it earlier. Way earlier.

Why hadn’t he, actually? Jason tended to pride himself on his ability to judge people, on how good he was when it came to spotting “good” or “bad” people. He had a radar, and a really good one, judging by past experiences.

But if that was the case, why hadn’t he noticed this time? Why hadn’t he noticed that for the past six or seven months he´d been manipulated, used? What had made him so blind to Dick Grayson´s attitude and intentions all this time?

He didn´t know, wasn’t sure he wanted to think about it, but as he watched Dick laugh and talk so comfortably and easily with Conner Kent of all people, he couldn’t help but think back on those months and all the clues he should have picked up on.

Because, looking back, Dick had left several, none of them subtle.

* * *

Richard “call me Dick” Grayson had come into his life in the middle of the fall semester his third year in college. One day Jason was yawning during his third class that day, thinking ahead to the afternoon training and his meeting with the coach regarding the funding for the rest of the semester. The next, there was someone sitting next to him, there was endless chatter and a bright and open smile like he hadn´t seen before.

Several days went by before Jason even decided to pay attention to whoever had been talking to him. When he did, he ended up staring into a pair of bright blue eyes and a mop of longish black hair.

The man didn’t even need Jason to speak to keep up an entire conversation, he was more of a chatterbox than he had first thought. Without even asking questions, Jason soon learned that Dick had just moved to Central City all the way from Gotham, just like he had, and that he was the adopted son of the man who _owned_ half of Gotham, Bruce Wayne. Jason learned all about his early life at Haly´s Circus, about a man named Alfred and about Dick´s career in the cheerleading world since he was ten. He also learned he had moved to Central City both to finish his social work degree and because he wanted to be part of the best cheerleading team in the country. A team he already had a place in, according to the man´s own words.

The day Jason finally spoke to him, it was because Dick was telling him about his last training session with the team and how the coach had told them they were short on funds unless they won the next competition and about striking some sort of deal with the football team.

It was because of that last bit that Jason stopped doing his self-assigned homework and frowned at the guy. “I haven’t been informed about any of this. Who did you talk to? Coach Summers? Are you sure?”

The man looked completely and utterly bewildered by the fact Jason had looked at him, let alone talked to him. It was like he hadn’t been expecting an answer at all, despite the fact that for the past two – almost three – weeks this man had been talking to Jason every chance he got, asking questions and also for his opinion in several matters.

Jason waited, then frowned. “Did you talk to Coach Summers?” he asked again.

The man gave him wide eyes, stared at him for another full minute before he threw his head back and let out a light and joyous laugh. When he faced Jason again, he was smiling, eyes sparkling. “Yes, we talked to Coach Summers. He said he´d run the idea by the head of the sports department before talking to his captain, which is you, right?”

Jason´s frown deepened. “Should I be surprised you know that?”

“Are you surprised?”

Was he? If he were honest… “No.”

The man… _Dick_ leaned in closer. “I don´t think we´ve introduced ourselves.”

“I don’t think we need to. I know your life story by now, I´m sure you know mine.”

“But wouldn’t it be polite if we did it the right way?”

 “You´ve been talking to me the past couple of weeks, or rather, inviting yourself to hold up one-sided conversations next to my seat. Do you really care about doing things the right way?”

Dick´s smile widened. He held out a hand. “Richard Grayson, nice to meet you.”

Jason raised an eyebrow, then snorted, shook the offered hand. “Jason Todd. Are you going to take this as further invitation to come and talk to me about every single bit of nonsense that crosses your mind?”

“Will you answer me at least once every hour?”

Jason held back another snort. “Maybe.”

“Then I am indeed inviting myself further!” And as he said it, Dick slid his chair closer, eyes sparkling once more.

He was serious. God help Jason, the weirdo was serious.

Thing was, while Dick was serious, it didn’t turn out to be as bad as Jason had thought it would. Sure, Dick still talked too much, he still got excited over the smallest of things and he loved to sit, walk or even stand closer than what Jason liked, but he was… sort of fun to be around.

Jason started to give more than one answer per hour after the first week. Two weeks later he and Dick would hold actual, interesting conversations in hushed whispers during class. One month after that the two of them were walking together out of class, talking all the way to their next one and would even meet after the day was over to drink coffee or tea in Jason´s favorite shop inside campus.

At some point during the second month, he started attending cheerleading practice every once in a while, starting the day Roy told him his new boyfriend was being thrown into the air for entertainment purposes and almost breaking his arms in the process. Jason had smacked him that day. First of all, because he and Dick weren´t boyfriends. Second, because he hadn’t believed him. Sure, Dick was a cheerleader, but he shouldn’t have been doing a whole routine on his own, and that was what Roy had told him he was doing. Then Kory had dropped by and told him the same thing, and he was dragged to one of the other fields to see the cheerleading team… _cheering_ as they watched some of the other male members of the team literally launch Dick into the air for him to do some ridiculous spinning movements before falling back down and be caught.

It was insane. It was dangerous. It was ridiculous, and yet Kory had to close his mouth because he couldn’t seem to do it on his own.

After Dick was done showing off – because that was what he was doing, the jerk – he seemed to spot Jason and came over. Roy wasted no time introducing both Kory and himself to Dick, and before Jason knew it Dick had won both his friends over and then Dick was smiling at him and asking if he had liked his performance.

Jason mumbled an, “It was okay,” that seemed to be enough for Dick, given he beamed. He then asked Jason if he could come watch his football practice one day. Jason didn’t remember his answer, but it must have had a positive note somewhere because after that, Dick would come to practice once a week as well, and more often than not they would hang out by themselves later. Jason felt like a high schooler all over again, and even with Kory and Roy´s comments beating down on him almost every day, he could admit he didn’t mind that much, only because he preferred to pay attention to Dick rambling about a dog needing glasses and other stupid, air-headed topics.

Then the semester ended, the spring semester began and Jason thought he´d be free of Dick Grayson for at least a couple of days a week due to the change in schedules. Except he wasn’t because Dick had saved his phone number before the semester ended and they would text back and forth a couple times every other day.

Six months into Dick´s transfer to the Central City University, Jason considered them to be… good friends who went on friendly and light dates. Neither of them pushed for something more, and it was during that sixth month that Dick began talking to him about Conner Kent.

Conner freaking Kent. Captain of the baseball team. Awkward and grumpy Conner Kent. The man Jason had the displeasure of meeting during his freshman year. The football and basketball teams had a history of rivalry and fighting for funds for the last fifty years or so, and in the beginning it hadn’t been so bad. They only had a couple classes together and didn’t speak to each other at all the first semester. The two of them earned their place and became part of their corresponding team. They had nothing to do with each other.

And then the unofficial rally had taken place between the several sports teams within the university. Jason had taken the wheel for the football team and Kent had driven for the baseball players. That ended with a not so dangerous car crash, a screaming match, some pushing, a lot of name calling and the threat that if they didn’t stop fighting they would both get kicked out of their teams. Things had gone downhill from there, and when both of them became team captains with only a couple of weeks between each other… the fact that it had gotten worse was putting it mildly.

Which was why Jason didn’t understand why Dick kept bringing up Kent.

“What was that, again?” Jason muttered around a mouthful of sandwich.

Dick lowered his eyes at the glass of tea he had in front of him. His fingers toyed with the straw in what Jason had learned was a slight show of nervousness.

“I said, don´t you think he´s a good captain? A little bit? At the very least?”

Jason looked at him like he had sprouted a second hand. He swallowed, frowned. “We´re still talking about the same person, right? Kent. Conner Kent.”

“Yes.”

He made a face. “I guess. I mean, the baseball team is still active and they haven´t lost that many games, from what I hear.”

“Yeah! I mean, not only are they still active but they´re going to nationals this year, and they´re also having some sales to help with funding.”

Jason took another bite of his sandwich. “Kent´s doing?”

“For the most part.” Dick looked alarmed all of a sudden, and he raised his hands. “I mean, I´m not comparing you or anything, I promise. I know you´re an amazing captain, I know you´ve brought your team so far since you took over, farther than past captains, I was just…”

“Hey, calm down, Dick. I get it. You think Kent is a good captain… and that he´s also kind of hot, and that he´s smart, given what you´ve told me before.” He raised both eyebrows this time. “What gives, Dick? You want me to set you up with him?” And for some reason, that made things turn inside his stomach. No, he didn’t like that idea at all.

Dick looked surprised, then a bit disappointed, a bit confused. “No, that´s not… I don´t want you to…” and here Dick stopped, let out a laugh and picked up his napkin. “You got sauce all over your face,” he said, then leaned in to wipe at Jason´s cheek and chin with the napkin.

Jason didn´t protest, and he waited for an answer that never came.

* * *

Yeah, looking back at all that, Dick had been pretty obvious about what he wanted. Jason was disappointed in himself, but overall, he was disappointed that Dick had turned out to be… planning this all along, and that what little rumors he´d heard had turned out to be true.

Dick had been trying to make him and Kent… _friends_. And he´d been trying to _seduce_ Jason to make his plan _work_.

Jason sighed, slung his backpack over his shoulder and kept staring at the two people across the field, his mind whirling. Now, to anyone else that might not seem like a necessarily bad thing. Just a good guy – because despite his many flaws Jason could admit Dick was a good guy – trying to fix the very strained, very unfriendly relationship that had been going on for almost two years now. That wasn’t a bad thing, was it?

Wrong. It was, especially because Kent and him were more than fine rolling their eyes at each other, competing against each other and fighting for money and wins. He and Kent were fine not giving a damn about each other, and Jason had told Dick this when Dick began talking to him about Kent. Things were fine as they were, there was no need for any reconciliation to happen.

Whatever good intentions Dick had, they were ruined by the fact Dick had been trying to seduce him. If Dick had come to him and straight up said, ‘hey, I think you and Kent should be friends again. Want to give it a go?’ Jason would have still said fuck no, but the fact Dick had gone through all those months, the fact that Jason had been… _hoping_ for something else with Dick, only for Dick to be doing this for… charity?

His hand tightened around his backpack strap when he saw Dick finally turn to leave Kent, saw Kent´s hand reach out to grab Dick´s wrist, and without even needing to look at Kent´s face, Jason knew Dick had been playing Kent as well.

Yeah, Jason that did not help Jason´s mood.

He took a deep breath, stayed where he was and watched Dick walk away from Conner, come across the field and spot him. Jason wasn’t sure what he had expected, but Dick´s face brightening and having the jerk run towards him were responses he had not seen coming.

Dick was right in front of him in a minute, smiling, almost bouncing in place. “Jason, hi! Oh boy, this is great. Hey, do you think…”

Jason was not about to let him finish. “This is not going to work, Grayson.”

 “Huh?”

“I saw you talking to Kent. I saw Kent talking to you. I´ve figured it out, Grayson, and your plan is not going to work.”

Dick´s expression fell right away. “What are you…?”

“You didn’t have to put yourself through all this, you know? You could have just literally come up to me one day and say that for some unknown, hare-brained reason you wanted me to become friends with Kent. What it would get you, I have no idea, and right now I don´t care. Really, Grayson, there was no need for you to… do all this.”

Dick looked confused, but by the time Jason finished speaking, he seemed to understand. He let out a very nervous laugh, opened his mouth, closed it, then frowned.

“No, Jason, you don´t understand. That´s not what I´ve been trying to do.”

“Have you been playing Kent as well?”

“I´m not…”

Jason raised both eyebrows, then shook his head. “I´m not going to talk this out with you.” In part because he didn’t think there was anything to say, in part because there was this bothersome tightening in his chest as the full weight of what Dick had done dawned on him.

What did that tightening mean? Well, according to his previous trains of thoughts…

Jason had trusted him. Jason had hoped. Jason had _wanted_.

Boy had it been a mistake.

“Jason…” Dick started, but Jason was already turning away. He searched for Conner Kent, because he was not going to let Dick do this anymore. Kent deserved to know. The fact that Jason kind of hated him didn’t mean Jason wanted him to get his hopes up and be used, not anymore.

“Fuck you, Grayson,” he said with a sigh, and since Kent was nowhere to be seen, he walked off in another direction, the farther the better. He didn’t really want to see Richard Grayson right now

Or ever again, if he had a choice.

* * *

Dick Grayson had come into Conner´s life the same way Bart had back in elementary school: loud, sudden, overwhelming, and had he already mentioned loud? Because needless to say, Dick Grayson was really loud, and really enthusiastic, and really bouncy… just like Bart. The difference between Dick and Bart, though, was the fact that Conner didn’t find Dick annoying.

Conner actually thought Dick was… nice. Friendly. Funny. _Pretty._ And kind of weird too.

He remembered that being the first word that popped into his mind the day they met. It was during first period, the night after intensive training and a full night of studying for a short test in the class he was not doing great in, and it happened in the most cliché fashion. Conner was tired, Conner was stressed, he was distracted, and when he reached into his backpack for his pencil case, there was nothing inside but his bottle of water. To most people that wouldn’t have been a big deal, but Conner took pride in his notetaking habits, and not taking notes one class…  the idea didn’t make him very happy.

“Need any of these?”

He turned his head and found three different colored pens, a highlighter and a pencil two inches away from his face. His eyes widened, he pulled back and followed the hand and arm holding out the pens, was met with one of the brightest smiles he´d ever seen. He was also met by sparkling blue eyes that made him squint.

“I…” he began, but couldn’t think of what else to say. He felt blinded for one second, and when he got past the sparkles and brightness, the pretty face he saw didn’t help. He frowned, hesitated, then took one of the pens. “Thank you.”

The smile almost blinded him when it widened. “You´re welcome. Are you sure you don´t need more pens? I can see your notebook from here. You´re one of those organized persons that writes titles and notes in different colors.”

Was that a compliment or an insult? Probably better not to think about it.

“Uh,” he said instead, and took the highlighter. His eyes slid to the stationery, then to his notebook. He hoped the guy would go back to his own business if he didn’t reply, but instead, the guy moved his chair closer.

“So…”

Conner had no choice but to look up. Ma Kent had taught him it was polite to look at people when they spoke to you, whether you asked for said conversation or not. “Yes?”

They guy looked mildly surprised Conner paid him any mind, and that confused him. If he expected to be ignored, why keep talking at all? It was weird. The guy was turning out to be weird.

“Oh. Nothing much. I just wanted to introduce myself. Hi there, big guy! I´m Richard Grayson, but you can call me Dick, everyone does. You can try and make jokes too, I´m always adding new ones to my many books.” The guy – Richard, _Dick_ – smiled at him again, then held out his hand. “I´m new here. I came to finish my social work degree from Gotham. It´s real nice to meet you.”

Huh. Gotham. Social worker. New student. Interesting. For some weird reason, given the things Clark always told him about Gotham, he had always thought the people from there were all as dark and gloomy as the city itself. He hadn’t met people from Gotham before, but for sure he hadn’t expected anyone to be like… like… Dick Grayson.

“Pleasure. I´m Conner Kent,” he said, eyeing him in a rather suspicious manner and shaking the offered hand. “I grew up in Smallville, came here because of the sports and public health program.”

Dick´s eyes brightened. “That´s awesome! Both things, I mean. Which sport do you play?”

“Baseball.” And because Ma Kent´s voice kept ringing inside his head he asked, “do you play?”

“Who, me? Baseball? No way.”

Conner gave him a once-over. “But you play something.” And it was more a statement than a question.

 “Kind of.”

Was he evading? It didn’t seem like something he would do. “Can you tell me?”

Dick´s grinned. “Why don´t I show you instead? I know for a fact the baseball team has their first game of the season today. You´ll play today, right?”

Conner nodded.

“Awesome. You´ll have your answer tonight, then.”

When Conner saw Dick dancing and doing pirouettes all across the field, he did get his answer. He hadn’t given Dick-kind-of-Pretty-and-Creepy Grayson much thought after the class, but out of the few things he did think about, never in a million years had Conner expected Dick to be the new member of the cheerleading time. Not that he had anything against the cheerleaders, Cassie was a member of that team after all, and now that he recalled, Cassie had said something about someone new joining the team, but he hadn’t ever thought it would be Dick of all people.

Needless to say, Conner was amazed. He gaped the whole time, and when the presentation was over, he was on his feet and clapping, and when the presentation was over, with the coach´s screams behind him, he jumped out of the dugout and went to Dick before he left the field.

Dick brightened when he saw him, and he waved until Conner was in front of him. “Conner, hi!”

“That was amazing,” was all Conner replied, and he began to turned red as soon as he said it. “I mean…” What did he mean? He meant… “Yeah. Amazing. You were amazing back there.”

Dick looked surprised, then burst out laughing and dipped at the waist in a rather coy manner. “Thank you, Conner, that means a lot. I´m glad you enjoyed the performance. Did it cheer you up?”

 “Yes,” he said.

“Then my job here has been done. Good luck in the game, Conner, on to victory!” Dick raised his hands, seemed to lean in for a hug, but ended up patting his shoulders instead.

Why Conner was the one who then moved in closer to turn that into a hug, he had no idea. When he did, though, after freezing for a couple of seconds, Dick chuckled and did hug him back.

Conner would have felt he had a good night even if the team had lost the game. They won, so more than good, it turned out to be a pretty cool night.

Conner´s days got better after that first night. Some of his classes became more enjoyable. Going out for coffee while waiting for his next class became a good idea. Walking with someone to practice every other day became a habit full of questions and jokes. Dick was a very curious man, and he seemed deeply interested in every aspect of Conner´s life, was bit more reserved when it came to talking about his own life, but Conner never shut Dick down, and Dick answered by slowly opening up about himself.

Conner came to like Dick as a friend before the fall semester was over. When the new one started and Dick told him about the changes in his schedule, he was a bit on edge until Dick confirmed they would still have two classes together. Why Conner asked Dick out for lunch after those news is better left unsaid.

Cassie talked to him about it halfway into the second semester.

“So when are you going to ask him out?” she asked as she stood on her head, a look of extreme – and very rare –concentration on her face.

“If you topple over you´re going to hit your back against the wall,” Conner replied, keeping most of his attention on his latest homework assignment.

Cassie ignored him, of course. “How long have you known each other by now? Five months? Six?”

“Cassie, if you´re not careful you´re going to get hurt and won´t be able to compete in the…”

“Don´t you like him? I think you do, right Bart?”

The redhead spoke from where he was munching on Cheetos and watching something in his laptop on the other side of the living room. “Hmm? What are we talking about?”

“Conner´s crush on Dick Grayson.”

“Oh.” Bart giggled, barely spared them a glance. “What is there to talk about. It´s like, real obvious. Have you seen how red he gets whenever Dick shows up to practice?”

Cassie spread her arms out. “See?”

Conner erased some of the numbers on his notebook page. “Cassie, stop that. Bart, that´s your third bag of Cheetos today.”

“Stop ignoring me, Conner. I´m not going to push you too much or anything. I´m just curious and worried, because Dick never seems to go beyond friendly and you´re not helping the issue either. If you like him, and if he likes you, why don’t you ask him out?”

Conner didn’t answer any of that, and Cassie dropped the issue not because she wanted to, but because Bart pulled up a fresh bag of chips, and she was rolling across the floor and on top of the couch in a hot second.

Neither of them paid him any further mind, and he didn’t feel like answering anything. Not that he could have anyway, since his mind came up with a thousand questions of its own. He couldn’t sleep that night, but by the next morning he had made up his mind.

He was going to ask Dick Grayson out on a date. Not a date between friends, but a real, actual date.

His plan, of course, went out the window when the very next day Dick talked to him about Jason Todd.

It happened while they walked their usual way to practice, and it happened quite casually, but the words called to Conner because it was the name of the man he hadn’t talked to and was supposed to hate for the rest of his college years.

And at one point Conner had indeed hated the loud, arrogant and reckless man that was Jason Todd. He had hated him during the rally and the next couple of months. After that, Conner moved on. He was bad at holding grudges, and he hadn’t hated Jason before the fiasco at the rally. He hadn’t really tried to apologize or do anything else regarding Jason Todd, which was why the rumors about them hating each other with a passion soon became a thing, and why the competition between them extended to their teams as a whole when they each became captains. Looking back on it, it was all a bunch of rumors and lies. The one true thing was the one no one knew: he didn’t hate Jason Todd.

So when Dick talked to him about Jason, asking if they knew each other, if they had been friends at once, Conner found it somewhat strange, but also like a chance to tell at least one person the truth. Dick looked ecstatic by the fact Conner had no personal beef with Jason, and also took it as an invitation of sorts, given after that day, Dick would slip in some comments about Jason´s personality and looks.

Conner found out Dick also took classes with Jason. He learned Jason was as studious as him, took even more notes than him, that he sometimes fell asleep in class due to his training regime and that Jason could crack some mean, awesome jokes.

He and Dick talked one day about Jason´s thighs. Another day, Conner admitted to thinking Jason´s eyes were a nice shade of blue.

Conner forgot about his intentions with Dick when Dick brought Jason into the conversations. He forgot because he found it both weird and curious and even amusing. He thought it was strange.

He never thought Dick did it because he was mean.

* * *

Jason Todd, on the other hand, did think Dick had done things because he was mean. In fact, from what Conner was learning, not only did Jason think Dick was mean, Jason thought Dick used people, that Dick had been using both of them.

Was Jason saying those words? Not at all. It was his body language that kept giving him away.

Conner swallowed his last bit of burger and wiped at his mouth with his napkin. He glanced at Jason out of the corner of his eye, took in the stiff posture, the frown, the thinned lips and the hands tightened around the bottle of ketchup. He was angry, there was no doubt about that, but there was something else behind that anger, had been from the moment Jason came into the café, invited himself to sit next to Conner and told him they needed to talk about Dick Grayson.

“So what you´re saying…” Conner began, but Jason cut him off.

“We´ve been through this two times already, Kent. You know what I´m saying.”

Conner did his best not to roll his eyes. “Yeah, I know, I heard. You´re telling me you´re butthurt because Richard fucking Grayson was using you, using _us_ , for some stupid charity of his. He was getting to know each of us, selling our package to the other, with the ultimate goal to win some sort of metaphorical medal by making us friends again. That´s what you´re telling me.”

“That´s what he´s been doing. Fucking jerk.”

“Todd, listen, I know you´re a really smart man. I know because Dick told me so, and I know that´s not what is making you upset. You´re not upset because Dick was trying to set us up for some dumb Hallmark friendship moment. I know you´re not angry because he´s been hanging out with both of us, leading us both on, whether it be in a friendly or romantic matter. That´s not what´s bothering you.”

If looks could kill, Conner would have dropped dead.

“Well, Dr. Phil, what the hell am I mad about then?” Jason snapped, then let out the driest, fakest of laughs. “I can´t believe you´re not mad about anything.”

Conner folded his napkin, lowered his eyes to the table. He took a deep breath and thought about it. The fact that Dick had been talking to, treating and overall doing the same things with Jason that he had done with him was… suspicious. It was unsettling. However, given what had been happening with Dick lately, what Jason had told Conner did add up. To be honest, it made perfect sense. Conner wasn’t too sure about Dick doing this because he wanted the two of them to be friends, but he agreed with Jason on the fact that… Well, it looked like they had been played.

And did that make Conner mad? It did. Now that he started thinking about it, it did make him mad, and he was sure it made him mad for the same reason as Jason.

“It makes you mad because you like him,” Conner mumbled with a sigh. “The thought of him using you for some ulterior stupid motive makes you upset because you thought it was real, that he was being real with you. You came to like him, and learning that he´s been playing, or manipulating the both of us…” Conner shrugged, looked at a random wall. “It hurts.”

Jason didn’t answer at first. In fact, he stayed silent for so long Conner forced his eyes to focus back on the other man just to see if he was still there. He was, but now Jason looked angrier. His hands were shaking, his face was red, and he really looked like he wanted to kill somebody. Conner imagine that someone was Dick.

“Todd?” Conner asked softly.

There was no answer. And then there was a fist slamming against the table, a scream that was more of a growl, and a hot, scalding, furious look.

“I hate him,” came the tight whisper.

Conner searched his brain for something useful to say that would also distract him from thinking about his own pain, a pain that was ready to surface any second now. Nothing came to mind, but there wasn’t any need for him to speak, given there was a gasp, then the sound of running footsteps, and lo and behold, Dick was now there, standing in front of their table, looking both relieved and terrified.

“Oh dear God, here you are, Jason!” Dick breathed, then turned to Conner. “And here you are. Oh, this is great. I´m so glad I found you both together at once.”

Jason looked like he´d been slapped, or like he´d rather be the one doing the slapping, and Conner had to admit… that was a fucking bold for Dick to say.

This was not going to be good.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late update! I wanted to keep this as weekly thing, but given university classes, the lack of inspiration and my wanting to add so many details... this took a bit. But, but, but! On the bright side (?) this chapter ended up being 12k plus words, so I decided to split it in two. The second part of this chapter will be up tomorrow or Sunday or Monday, I don´t know which one you´d guys prefer XD 
> 
> Also, side note... no way in hell is this going to be three chapters only LOL

Dick had never cared much for long-term planning. He had never cared much for short-term planning either. In truth, the less plans Dick had in his life, the better. He had never been a fan of thinking ahead, of figuring out what to eat the following week since he wasn’t there yet. He had been taught from an early age to enjoy the moment, to live his life in the present to the maximum and worry about the future later without too many worries.

Getting adopted by Bruce wasn’t something he had planned for. Joining the cheerleading team during his first day of middle school at Gotham Academy had been a sudden and quite enjoyable decision. Choosing to go to Gotham U had been the natural course of life: it was close, it was a good university, the sports program was supposed to be good. Transferring from Gotham to Central City hadn’t been much of a plan either, but more of a sudden decision. The coach back at Gotham U had come to him one day to inform him scouts from Central City were going to watch the team´s performance the day after and to prepare a new routine for them. Dick had spent the next day jumping and doing cartwheels and whatnot in order to show the scouts something decent. The performance came out better than expected, and he was offered a position in the Central City U cheerleading team the very next day. There wasn’t much time to think, much less to hesitate or plan, and he was on a plane to Missouri the day after.

Meeting Jason Todd and Conner Kent once he was in Central Ciy was the thing he least planned for, but ironically, they became the most throughout and important plan of his life later on.

He met Jason Todd in one of his first attempts to make friends in his new university. It was about his third day in Missouri, the first day he attended class, and the thing that made him sit next to Jason that first day was, to be truthful, the fact that he was ignored all throughout the class. Two full hours of him trying to introduce himself and just start a conversation with the serious, handsome man with a shock of white in his deep black hair only to receive absolutely no answer. All the while, the man kept looking at the board, writing really neat and tidy notes, checking his phone once or twice and pretty much _enjoying_ the class.

It amused Dick to no end, and it made him curious. He found out soon enough that the man´s name was Jason, that no, contrary to what it looked like, he wasn’t deaf, wasn’t blind certainly. From what other students told him about Jason Peter Todd, all-star captain of the football team, he was someone who didn’t socialize a lot and who only ignored his best friend: Roy, and that only made Dick more amused. Jason was ignoring him for who knew what reason, maybe he just wasn’t interested in making friends, maybe he disliked Dick from the get-go, maybe he didn’t consider Dick worthy of his attention. Whatever the reason, Dick took an immediate liking to Jason, and if there was something Dick was good at, it was being stubborn.

So he kept sitting next to him. He kept talking to him. He kept asking questions without expecting an answer. Once or twice he even took a pen, eraser and even a notebook sheet from Jason´s desk without the latter even looking at him. Dick found it amusing all the while, and if he were honest with himself, by the time Jason actually talked back to him, Dick had become so used to talking to himself that he couldn’t do anything but stare for what felt like an eternity.

“I haven’t been informed about any of this. Who did you talk to? Coach Summers? Are you sure?”

It was the first time Dick heard Jason´s voice, and it was better than expected. His voice was deep, gruff, held a smoky edge to it that made Dick´s eyes widen, his breath run out. No, he hadn’t expected that voice at all, but looking back, how could he not? The man had this confident, serious, badass aura around him that should have given Dick a clue not only about the voice, but about those eyes.

Because… _damn_. His eyes… Dick felt like he had misused the word turquoise until Jason. His eyes weren’t blue, nor green, but a very lovely mix of both colors, a blend of light shades that culminated with the slightest hint of deep green near the pupil. Those eyes were beautiful, and Dick found himself staring into them long enough to make Jason frown. He reacted then, shook his head and tried to focus on the conversation Jason had started. He wasn’t going to let that chance go, not after how long it had taken for Jason to pay attention to him.

So he took a deep breath, tried to hide his surprise with a very boisterous laugh, and he talked. He talked, and while he spoke he kept staring into those eyes, the sharp and strong angles of a very handsome face, the curl of white hair falling over his forehead, the hollow of his throat, the way the brown leather jacket seemed to cling to Jason´s body in just the right places. The man was gorgeous, there was no doubt about that, and as soon as Dick scooted closer and caught a whiff of Jason´s cologne, or natural scent or whatever it was, Dick knew he was a goner.

Of course, that represented a problem at first, given by the time he and Jason began interacting, Dick had already been a goner for Conner for a couple of weeks.

He met Conner as early as he met Jason, two or three days later, give or take, and the first thing Dick noticed about him was: Conner Kent was a sweetheart.

Dick had a method for making friends, one that only started working once he got to university back in Gotham, but it worked there, and Jason Todd aside, it had worked here as well. So Dick did what he always did: he sat next to a random person, stole a couple of glances out of the corner of his eyes, and when he saw the opportunity to start a conversation, he did. Who knew carrying a full pencil case would be useful for a reason other than looking like a thoughtful student.

“Need any of these?” he asked.

The guy stared at the pens for a little while, then raised his eyes to meet Dicks, and something must have been wrong with Dick because after a little while the guy squinted.

“I…” the guy began, squinting at the things Dick was probably holding too close to his face. He frowned, looked like he was about to turn tail and run, but he took one of the pens. “Thank you,” he said, and Dick, who had been smiling since the beginning, couldn’t help but grin.

“You´re welcome. Are you sure you don´t need more pens? I can see your notebook from here. You´re one of those organized persons that writes titles and notes in different colors,” he said, stealing another glance at the notebook the guy had in front of him. Oh yes, he was an organized and studious one, Dick could tell.

The guy looked lost, then just confused, then shy as he took the highlighter and went back to his notes, and it was one of the cutest things Dick had ever seen. Not that many grown men could pull off the adorable look, but him? Dick was so fascinated after that one little display of cuteness that he leaned in closer and talked, just to see how it would go over.

It went much better than expected, and after talking to Conner Kent, captain of the baseball team, for ten minutes, Dick could say without a doubt that he was one of the sweetest persons he had met in his entire life. The way he talked, the way he gave Dick polite smiles, the effort he put into asking Dick questions and trying to keep the conversation going despite looking a bit uncomfortable the whole time was adorable. The word ‘endearing’, however, only came to mind later that night when Conner hugged him after watching Dick perform. For a person who loved cuddles, hugs and displays of physical attention overall as much as Dick did, that little hug won Dick over without much fuss.

As the weeks and months then went by he discovered – though not really to his surprise –that Jason was so much more than a pretty face, and that Conner was as beautiful a man as he was sweet.

Dick wasn’t the most organized person in the world, and everyone who knew him for more than a day could tell, but when it came to Jason and Conner, Dick found himself keeping lists of what they were like, what they enjoyed, what they didn’t, and he also found himself reveling with every little thing he learned, noticed and discovered.

He learned that Jason was a whole lot nerdier than what his cool, bad-boy appearance let show. He was constantly planning new training regimes and activities overall to keep his team active and happy because he considered them all friends and because he cared for them all. He also took an extra course on advanced literature, which was his favorite subject, given he was the biggest Shakespeare fan and could actually recite a ton of quotes from most pieces from memory. Dick also learned that Jason had acquired his taste for the classics and Shakespeare thanks to his grandpa, the man who had raised him and died several years ago. A man that reminded Dick of Alfred too much. In truth, more than the initial cold impression Dick had gotten from him, Jason was one of the most observant, polite and quite loving people he had met, if the way he talked about his late grandpa and childhood pets were any indication.

Thanks to some excessive staring he didn’t regret one single bit, he learned that contrary to what most people thought, and what he had thought when first meeting him, Conner´s eyes weren’t blue but actually grey, and even then, they changed from a deep grey to a very light blue and several hues in-between depending on his mood, the lighting and the clothes he wore. Dick found out he looked best in blue because it brought out his eyes, but Conner liked to wear a lot of black, and to be honest, he looked pretty darn gorgeous with that color as well. Of course, part of that gorgeousness was due to the fact of how Conner dressed: casual, comfy, with shirts that left little to the imagination and straight jeans that gave him a rather clean and serious appearance.

It didn’t take more than a week for Dick to find similarities between them… such as the fact they both treasured their leather jackets as much as their notebooks. It didn’t take long to realize that he had a type either.

He also noticed several aspects in which they were different.

Jason had one of the best senses of humor in the world, at least from Dick´s perspective. He didn’t joke very often, but when it did it always made Dick laugh to tears. Jason was witty and concise, and no one could use irony and sarcasm better than him. Dick thought it was fascinating, as fascinating as it was to see Jason getting amused at the reactions his comments got him, as fascinating as it was to see Jason rolling his eyes and crack the shadow of a smile whenever Dick took a bit too long to understand his sharp jokes.

Conner, on the other hand, possessed the most awkward yet gentle and somewhat innocent he had ever encountered. Conner wasn’t much for telling jokes, he always seemed to stumble upon the words, but he laughed at the ones Dick told, no matter how lame they were, and when he didn’t understand he asked for the joke to be explained. Dick would tell him it wasn’t a joke if he had to explain it, but Conner insisted, and by the end of the explanation he would actually end up laughing.

Jason was very possessive of his personal space and his alone time, Dick soon learned. He wasn’t comfortable with Dick looking over his shoulder all the time during class, or with Dick always standing or walking too close. He also seemed unsure on what to do when Dick forgot all the rules about personal space and slung an arm over the back of his chair or leaned his head against his shoulder. He also had days when he´d sit as far away from Dick and the rest of the class as possible, and on those days he would turn down Dick´s invitations to walk together to practice or to get a cup of coffee with nothing but a frown and a slight shake of his head. Dick learned those were the bad days, that Jason liked to sort them out on his own. When he was feeling better, could be one hour later, could be the next day, he´d approach ick and tell him about what had been bothering him. Dick learned to listen, and to wait until he was allowed near once more.

Conner didn’t mind Dick being close, and that was one thing that made Dick´s heart ache, but in the good way. Conner let him sit as close to him as possible, let him grab onto his jacket sleeve if they found themselves in a crowd, didn’t mind Dick leaning in to whisper something as they made their way to practice. He always greeted Dick with the softest of smiles, would do his best to initiate conversations, not because he didn’t like silences, but because as the very Conner told Dick, he did like Dick´s company, and he wanted to show he cared. On Conner´s bad days, he would still allow Dick close, but those were the silent days, the days where Dick patted him in the back and gave silent support. Conner would tell him what was wrong when he was ready, and after talking about it Conner would go back to his usual self. With him, Dick learned to be silent, yet supportive, and to also be patient.

Five months after moving to Central City, he told Wally about the very interesting, very sweet, very serious and above all, very hot guys he had met.

“So you´ve made two new friends,” the redhead concluded, peering at Dick from the other side of the computer screen. They´d been videocalling for over an hour now, and after Dick had been going off track every five seconds to talk about either Jason or Conner, Wally had decided to tackle the subject head-on, and it hadn’t been hard to get Dick to spill all the beans.

Dick made a face. He lowered his gaze to the laptop´s keyboard. “Yes?”

“Yes as in you´ve found two new best friends? You´re replacing me? After I was the only kid who talked to you back in middle school, when you joined the cheerleading team? I´m hurt, Dick.”

Dick raised his eyes, laughed. “I´m not replacing you. You know that´s not what I´m saying.”

Wally laughed, the nodded. “Yeah, but that sounds a hell of a lot less complicated that what you _are_ telling me, Dick. So you met these two guys, and they´re your friends, but at the same time they´re not because you like them as more than friends. Thing is, you like both of them romantically, but you haven’t really tried to pursue a relationship with either of them because it would feel like you´re betraying the other one. Did I miss something?”

“Not really. Just the fact that I recently found out they hate each other since a competition they had back in their freshman year. They don´t talk to each other, and their teams, from what I´ve seen, have taken that rivalry to heart.”

“Right, just missed that little detail.” Wally tilted back in his chair, raised both eyebrows. “And you´re having such a hard time not talking about them and thinking about them because, as I´ve said before, you would like to have something more than a friendship with them.”

Dick rubbed the back of his neck, nodded.

“With _both_ of them?”

Well… “Yeah,” he said.

Wally´s eyebrows climbed up into his hairlines, then he laughed. “Well, coming from you, I´m not that surprised. I mean, I remember the time you, Kaldur and I went to karaoke and you told us it was your first date and that you were having a lot of fun.”

“Well, it was a pretty great night out,” Dick pointed out.

“It was,” Wally agreed. “But it did catch us off guard the fact that you seemed to think a romantic date was possible between three people. Even now, something other than a monogamous relationship isn’t seen as something common. For us hormonal pre-teens, it seemed downright nuts.”

Dick winced, then shrugged. “You know I think a lot of… things are normal… things people seem to think are weird or plain crazy are common for me.”

“Yeah, I know, and I´m not judging you, you know I´d never do that. I´m just evaluating the situation, or what I think the situation will be if these crushes of yours turn into something more.” Dick coughed, and Wally´s eyebrows went up again. “Ah, they are more already. So you´re in love with these two guys?”

“… I could be.”

“In Dick-speech that´s a blatant yes.” Wally straightened in his chair, leaned in closer to the screen and gave Dick a fond and soft smile, one that indicated without any need for words just how much Wally knew his best friend. “I know how that mind works. For all your flair and free spirit and excessive flirting, you don´t crush on people easily, less of all fall in love. You crushed on Kladur, you and I thought we were in love for a while, but I´m pretty sure you never talked about me the way you talk about them.” Wally´s gaze softened, and the smile grew bigger. “And when Dick Grayson is in love, it means things have gotten serious, and that he´s not moving on anytime soon.”

Dick let out a soft laugh, rocked back in his own chair and hoped Wally didn’t comment on the blush he was sure covered him up to the tip of his ears. “What do you think I should do? I´m… I´m in love with the two of them, I like them both, and I know it´s not the usual thing, but at the same time, I can´t bring myself to do the usual. It´s not like they have fought for me or any of that crap from the movies. In fact, I´m pretty sure they see me as nothing more than a friend, and I want them to see me as more than that… but I don´t want to be in a relationship with just one of them. It wouldn’t feel fair, you know? It´d feel like betrayal.”

Wally thought about it for a couple of seconds, nodded, then frowned. “So what are you going to do?”

“What do you think I should do?”

“Personally? I think you should do what you want to do. If you want to date them both, do your best to do it. Whether it works out or not, you won´t know until you try. I know you´d be putting a lot at risk, but it if all goes to hell, they´ll both probably end up hating you, so you won´t have to choose between either of them. A win-win in a way, right?”

Dick snorted, then rolled his eyes. He covered his mouth and tried to keep the next snort to himself, but he couldn’t, and he ended up laughing so hard he fell out of his chair.

Wally peered at him through the screen, grinned. “I know you don´t like planning stuff, but if you´re going to get both your men into your bed and yourself into their hearts, you´ll need a plan.”

Dick wiped the tears away from his eyes, sat in his chair again and reached for a pad of paper and a pen.

“I think I already have one, but I´m listening,” he said, and began writing down what his plan was.

 

* * *

 

   
And up until this point, the first serious plan he had made in his entire life had been going remarkably well. Sure, he knew both Conner and Jason found it strange that he talked to them about the other, but he´d been hoping one of them would at least get the gist of what he was trying to do. He had also hoped they wouldn’t misunderstand the situation, but from the look Jason was giving him, and the way Conner seemed ready to stop Jason if something were to happen, he realized the misunderstanding had probably been worse than what he had thought it would be like.

“Um. I really am glad I found the two of you at the same time. This is perfect. Not the best timing I guess, but good nonetheless.” And after he said that Jason´s gaze seem to burn hotter, and he saw Conner tense up. He felt his own throat go dry, and for a moment he didn’t know what to say.

Apparently, that was the worst thing he could do because Jason scoffed and rose from his chair. “I already told you, Grayson. Fuck you. I´m leaving.”

His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, but he took a step forward and grabbed Jason´s arm. No, Jason couldn’t leave. He needed to talk to him and Conner. Jason had to stay.

Jason stiffened, and he looked at Dick´s hand like it was something offensive. “Let go.”

“Jason, I need to talk to you.”

“About what, Grayson? About you using Kent and I for some stupid plan?”

“What? No. No! I told you, it´s not what it looks like.”

“It´s exactly what it looks like. I already talked to Kent. You did with him what you did with me. I still don´t understand what was your final goal, but right now I don´t give a damn. You have nothing to say, I´ve already figured it all out.”

Dick gaped at him. “No, Jason. Please sit down. Let me explain. I swear it´s not what it looks like. I wasn´t…”

“Yes you were!”

“You didn’t even let me…!”

“Ok, that´s enough, both of you.” And Conner´s voice, though low, managed to carry as he stood and walked to step between them. He put a hand on Jason´s shoulder and pushed down. It took almost a minute, a lot of heated staring, but eventually Jason sat back down. Next, Conner placed a hand on Dick´s shoulder as well, and only went to his chair after Dick was sitting.

“Calm down, Todd. I know you´re mad, but you have to give him the chance to talk, at the very least,” Conner said.

“Why don’t you understand, Kent? There´s nothing to talk about. He lied to us, he was using us. How hard is it for you to get that?”

“I´m not saying I don’t understand, Todd. I´m saying Dick deserves a chance to explain himself to us. You and I reached conclusions without having his side of the story.” Jason scoffed, crossed his arms. Conner turned to look at Dick, who swallowed hard and nodded.

“Thank you, Conner.”

“Don´t thank me, Dick. I really am waiting for your explanation as well.”

Dick nodded again, then took a deep breath. “Ok, of course. First of all, please, I need you both to understand that I wasn’t playing either of you. My goal hasn’t been to date both of you behind each other´s back, to have a relationship with you separately. I didn’t want to cheat on anybody, or to start anything with either of you until I´d talked to the two of you.” Dick swallowed. “That´s why I haven´t wanted to do anything too intimate. With anyone. I´ve tried my best to keep our interactions friendly, no romantic dates, no kisses, nothing.”

“Because you were covering your own ass for when you were caught,” Jason muttered.

“No, Jason, that´s not what I was trying to do!”

“Then why didn´t…?!”

“Todd, shut up for a goddamn second and let him talk,” Conner grumbled, and it was the loudest thing he had said. Jason glared, seemed ready to stand up and leave, but in the end he took a deep breath and nodded.

Dick took in another deep breath. “Yes, as I was saying. I didn’t do any of this because I wanted to go behind anyone´s back. Jason said earlier that I was doing all this because I wanted you guys to be friends again. That´s not entirely false.”

Jason slammed his hands down on the table, gave Conner a look that clearly said, ‘See?’

“But I didn’t do it because I was setting you up or anything!” Dick hurried to say, raising his hands. “I know you had that big fight back in your freshman year and that the two of you haven’t talked since, but I´ve also discovered that Conner doesn’t hate you, Jason. Conner, Jason doesn’t really hate you either. He does have certain dislike for you, but it´s not because he doesn’t like you as a person, it´s because of what happened. You guys don´t hate each other, I know that now, which is why I tried even harder to… I wasn’t trying to play Cupid between you two, I wasn’t trying to date one of you either.”

“Then what were you trying to do?” Conner asked. “Because everything you just mentioned, it is what it looked it. Nothing else I can think of right now makes sense. Did it have to do something with romance? Did anything about your attitude toward us was genuine, or did you lie to us about everything, Dick?”

“Everything was genuine, Conner. I never lied to you guys, everything we´ve done, everything I´ve said, to you or Jason, I´ve meant it.”

“Then that´s just confusing, Dick,” Conner told him.

Dick sighed. “I know,” he said. “I… I was trying to set the three of us up, okay? You, Jason and I. I was trying to play Cupid, just not with you two… but rather between the three of us.”

Jason stiffened at that. Conner frowned, and the two of them exchanged glances before Jason shook his head and Conner´s frown deepened.

“Excuse me?” Conner asked.

Dick pursed his lips. He stayed quiet for a full minute, then cleared his throat. “I was born in a circus,” he began, enunciating each word rather carefully. “I grew up and lived in Haly´s Circus for the first ten years of my life. My parents were acrobats, and we used to travel all over the world. You know how the gypsy lifestyle is? Circus life is quite similar: it´s loud, it´s flashy, t´s practical yet quite unconventional, everything is temporary, and above all… well, it´s weird, all right? Circus life is weird.” Dick winced, then took a deep breath in. “Polyamorous relationships weren’t unheard of back in the circus. In fact, I dare say there were the norm, which is why they have never seemed outrageous to me. My parents were monogamous, but I lived around polyamorous people until I was eleven. It was what I was used to, what I saw, and to some extent what I learned.”

Jason blinked, then frowned, and for the first time he didn’t look mad, but instead he looked confused. Conner on the other hand began to look angry, but Dick had learned that happened whenever he felt confused far too long.

“So you lived with people who had… orgies all the time?” Conner asked.

“Orgies and open relationships,” Jason added.

Dick gritted his teeth. “No, that´s not it. Polyamory doesn’t mean open relationships, much less does it mean orgies, not outside of the people in the relationship anyway.”

“What´s the difference?” Jason asked, looking highly skeptical.

Dick pursed his lips one more. He intertwined his fingers on top of the table. “Don´t say it like that, Jason. Don´t say it like there aren´t differences, like it´s all the same, because it´s not. Look, the three things have some similarities, mainly the fact that none of them involve monogamy, but orgies and open relationships are mostly about sex. Orgies are people having a massive amount of sex with as many people as they can. There´s no emotional connections, just lust, just physical activity, you know? It´s also something that doesn’t happen all the time. Open relationships are similar to orgies on the fact that emotional connections don´t always come into the equation. When in this type of relationship, say, for example, you, Jason, and Conner get together, and you love each other, the sex is amazing between you two, but it isn´t enough, you guys want more, have needs that your partner can meet.” He made a voila gesture with one hand. “So you talk and decided to see other people. You guys agree on the fact that Conner can have sex with the friend who´s butt he´s always liked, and Jason is allowed to go to the bar to pick up girls or boys, whichever you like, and have sex with them. Open relationships begin with a couple, but don´t stay that way. Does that make sense?”

Jason and Conner exchanged glances. Jason scoffed. Conner´s frown deepened.

“It does, but not in our situation,” Conner said.

Dick raised his hands, nodded. “Yeah, because I haven’t gotten to our situation yet, which is polyamory. Polyamory isn’t about sex, but sex can be part of it. See, polyamorous relationships are about loving more than one person and wanting to have deep emotional bonds with more them. The easiest way I can explain is: people with open relationships or orgies meet up twice a week and to have a couple of drinks and then have sex all night, while the polyamorous people prefer to spend most nights having dinner together and talking about their days and then having sex, but it´s not a must, and it´s not the base of the relationship. I know that sounds like stereotyping, but that where the difference lies. That´s… that´s what I wanted to propose to you guys. That´s why I stared talking to Jason about you, Conner, and why I talked to Conner about you, Jason. What I want… what I had hoped to propose to you is a…”

“A threesome,” Jason deadpanned.

“… Yes, but at the same time no.”

“You want a polyamorous relationship with us,” Conner said.

“That I what I would ask you guys to give a chance, yes.”

“But wanting such a relationship with us would mean…” Conner frowned, then frowned harder. “It would mean that you…”

“That I´m in love with you both? Yes, in fact, I love you the two of you.”

Jason went even stiller than before, and even Conner froze. Both their eyes widened, and they stared at Dick like he´d sprouted a second head. After what felt like an eternity, Conner looked down, the lightest of blushes creeping up his cheeks. Jason, on the contrary, just gave a laugh as bitter and dry as before.

“Well, isn´t that just peachy. I get a confession, a love confession, from this guy that isn’t that bad looking and who I would have liked to fuck, but guess what? The confession isn’t just for me, but for this guy I don´t care about. Also, the confession is made when this decent-looking guy proposes us both to have a threesome with him and try to be a couple… except with three people. Amazing. Fucking hilarious too. Like really, really hilarious.” He laughed, smiled, ended up baring his teeth in clear displeasure.

“For the millionth time, shut up, Todd!” Conner cried, and slammed his own hand against the table. Dick jumped, and a couple people looked in their direction, but Conner didn’t even seem to notice them. He was very busy glaring at Jason, hands balled into tight, angry fists, and Jason was glaring right back at him, looking ready to move any second.

“You think this upsets only you? You think you´re the only one that doesn´t like hearing all this? You think I´m happy that the guy I like, the guy I planned on asking out since last month, just told me that he does have feelings for me, but also for another guy who I don´t even know? That he wants the three of us to be together?” Conner snapped. “Let me tell you, Todd. It doesn’t make me any happier than you.” He turned to Dick, and his darkened like rainclouds. “Why, Dick? Why do you want this? Why did you think this was a good idea? The three of us. Just… why? Why couldn´t… why can´t you just… choose? This is not fair for Todd, nor for me. I know Todd feels something for you, but I don´t know what exactly. Me? I like you, Dick, so much. I´m pretty sure I´m in love with you too. You can´t drop such a big bomb on the two of us, you can´t tell _me_ this, and expect me to be cool, to agree with what you want, because I don´t. I don´t see how that would work, and I don´t want to figure it out.”

Dick looked pale by the time he was done talking, and Conner rubbed a hand over his face, let out a frustrated sound. He closed his eyes, counted to ten. When he opened them again, he felt way calmer, but Dick looked paler, and damn it if it didn’t tug at his… heartstrings?

“Dick, look…” Conner tried again, but the words escaped him, and Jason spoke before he did.

“Don´t look like you´re terrified, Grayson. You had to know this was coming. There is no way you actually thought this was going to go over well, did you? Proposing a threesome, a polyamorous relationship. Did you honestly think it was a good idea to even think about it?” Dick lowered his eyes as Jason asked the question, and Jason, much like Conner had, rubbed a hand over his face.

“Unbelievable,” he muttered, and a blush crept up his neck, but his it couldn’t be out of anything but anger. “Un-fucking-believable. Grayson, I don´t know whether you are that big of an optimist or just an idiot. Either way, I´m done with this. I´m done with you and your weird ideas and manipulative fantasies. I am so not listening to anything else you say.” Jason rose, face red, lips forming a thing line, hands fisted at his side.

“Kent said something about choosing. You don´t need to, Grayson. Kent already said he loves you back, so there you have it. Cuddle up to him all you want. Me? Don´t come close to me ever again. Have fun.” And Jason was across the little café and out the door before Dick could open his mouth.

Dick blinked once, twice, realized there was a tightness in his chest, and his vision was beginning to blur. He looked at Conner, then lowered his gaze because it was all getting too blurry.

“At this point I don´t know whether I want to comfort you or not,” Conner said as he watched Dick trying to compose himself. “After this, I don’t know whether I want to be close to you anymore. My feelings won´t disappear because of this, Dick, but Todd can´t do this, and I won´t either. I don’t understand why you´d need to love more than one person, but I do understand that if you love Todd, being with me won´t be enough, and I refuse to be a side fling, not when I was willing to give you everything.” Conner stood, and Dick kept looking at the table. Conner waited, then almost stretched out a hand to run his hand through the dark and soft-looking hair. In the end, however, he shoved his hands into his jacket pockets. “I´m sorry, Dick,” he said, and when he realized he meant it, he knew he needed to get out of there.

He left, but not before he saw Dick´s face crumble and fall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual, my deepest apologies for any grammar or spelling mistake. I checked throughly, but hey, sometimes things still slip by, sorry if it happens 
> 
> And I also want to apologize if this felt tedious and repetitive and full of dialogue, the next part is heavy on dialogue and inner turmoil and figuring stuff out too. I hope you guys stick around for what comes next, it´ll get better, you have my word XD
> 
> Anyways, thanks so much for reading!!!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be honest I didn´t realize that the first part of this chapter was sad until my best friend and a couple of you guys pointed it out... I didn´t mean it to be sad, I´m so sorry ;A;! I decided to upload this next part today just to assure you guys that it wouldn´t get even more sad XD

Jason picked up a pack of cigarettes four days later. He had wanted to pick up at least three boxes the day after the fiasco with Dick and Kent, but he hadn’t for several reasons. First, he was an athlete and wasn’t supposed to do that, ever, since they were tested regularly. Second, he did smoke every now and then, first reason be damned – ironically –, but only when it was finals week and he needed something to keep him awake and attentive. Third, he also smoked during finals week because finals week stressed him the most, and hence, Roy and Kory knew that if he smoked, and if it wasn’t during finals week, he was stressed, and very much so.

On the fourth day however, he couldn’t take it anymore. It was Tuesday, he and Dick shared one class Tuesdays and Wednesdays for two hours each day, and while it had been easy to ignore the issue all weekend, being in class, and Dick not sitting next to him like he used to, barely catching a glimpse of him when class ended… it made him think back to the rather annoying conversation he had had with Dick and Kent. It had also made Jason think about how attuned he had become to Dick´s presence. He had been able to push thoughts regarding Dick to the back of his mind before because he had a busy weekend but now there was no avoiding the issue in his own head.

He had told Dick to never come close to him again, and so far Dick had done pretty much that. Had Jason been too rough with what he said when he left? He didn’t know, but the more he thought about it, the more he realized he might have been a bit too harsh. That or Dick hadn’t cared one bit about him because he hadn’t tried to contact Jason at all since then.

All right, that was a lie.

Jason lit up his fifth cigarette of the afternoon, breathed out a couple of smoke rings and took his phone out of his pocket. He pulled up his conversation with Dick, one that had gone from nonsense about hand-knitted sweaters for rabbits to several solemn apologies. Jason hadn’t replied to any of them, but since yesterday he couldn’t help but stare at them every five minutes.

_I know I´ve texted you too many times already, but please, Jason, believe me when I say I´m sorry. I never wanted to use you, I never wanted to play you. I apologize, and please rest assured that I won´t bother you anymore. Love you._

That was the last text Dick had sent the day after Jason last saw him. Jason had barely looked at it when it was sent. And now? If he skimmed over the one-sided conversation every five minutes, four of those five were spent staring those words, the little speech bubbles.

Love you. How could Dick say that? Why would he say that? After what he and Kent had said, after he and Kent had made their positions very clear, after he had pretty much rejected every single one of Dick´s words, why on Earth did Dick say ‘I love you’ to him?

He inhaled deeply, closed his eyes and let the taste of tobacco wash over him for a couple of seconds, soothing him, calming him, and then he let the smoke out, tried to distract himself with the swirls that floated and disappeared into the sky.

The distraction didn’t work for very long, and soon enough he was back to asking his phone why. Why would Dick do any of what he did? Why had he picked Jason and Kent? Why had he decided he wanted to have a threesome with them? Why did Dick say he loved Jason, but that he also loved Kent? Why couldn’t Dick have feelings just for him? Why wasn’t Jason enough for Dick, when Dick, loud, annoying and too cheerful for comfort, was… more than enough for Jason?

He let out a growl, a curse, took a stronger pull from his cigarette.

Jason didn’t think too little of himself, but in many aspects he did lack… a bit of confidence, or so his grandfather had used to say. Even Kory and Roy said it nowadays. Sometimes Jason didn’t see himself for who he really was, and contrary to popular belief, Jason wasn’t the typical bad boy that was an asshole, but rather… he was just Jason.

The fact that Dick claimed he ‘loved’ Jason for being just Jason made his chest tighten a little. It felt… it felt nice. At the same time, the fact that Dick claimed to love Conner too made Jason think that in truth being just Jason wasn’t enough. It made him feel like he lacked something, or several somethings.

He breathed in deeper than before, realized there was nothing but the butt left, and he let out another curse before smashing it against the ashtray. He pulled out another one right away, lit it up and pulled hard.

Why it hurt so much, Jason would rather not think about it.

“Jason? Jason, are you here? I saw smoke coming from the balcony as we came upstairs. Is everything all right?”

Kory´s voice pulled him from his thoughts, and he turned his head in time to see Kory open the door that separated the little balcony from the rest of his and Roy´s apartment. She stepped outside, took one look at Jason, and her brow furrowed in concern and confusion right away.

Jason may or may not have lowered the cigarette a tiny little bit.

“Jason?” she asked again, then walked over to the little bench he was sitting on. She sat down eyed him rather critically, and then her arms were around him, hugging him to her with her usual fierceness and strength.

“Hey, Kory,” he replied, and didn’t even try to wiggle away.

“You are smoking. You must be feeling quite terrible. What happened?”

Before Jason could reply, Roy barged into the balcony carrying the fire extinguisher, yelling something about having everything under control and the toaster being intact. Jason didn’t have to see Kory´s face to know she was staring at him, probably looking confused, given he was doing the same.

“That was six years ago, and last I recall, you were the one who burned Ollie´s toaster, not me,” he said.

Roy looked offended and a bit embarrassed for one whole second, then he seemed to notice what Kory was doing, and before Jason could even protest, there were two pairs of arms around him, two cheeks pressed against his hair.

“Jesus Christ, I´m not a damned stuffed toy,” he muttered. “Let go.”

“You´re smoking and Kory is hugging you in that ‘Jason is having a terrible time’ way she has. It means she´s not letting go anytime soon, and neither am I. What´s wrong, Jay? I knew you were acting weird since last Saturday. If you´re smoking, the end of the world must be near.”

“You´re such a drama queen, Roy. I´m fine.”

“You are not fine,” Kory said. “And please do not get stubborn with us, Jason. You are smoking, that is a terrible sign, and Roy is right. You have been acting odd since the weekend, after we last saw you talk to Richard. Did something happen between you two?”

Jason stayed silent, wiggled his arm enough to bring the cigarette up to his lips, but before he could, Roy snatched it and put it out, left in on the ashtray.

“Hey!” Jason protested.

“The whole thing is pretty much full. You don´t smoke that many even during finals, and you tried to take a pull when Kory mentioned Dick. What happened?” Roy asked, ignoring his protests and squirming.

“Nothing happened.”

“Cow poop,” Kory declared proudly.

Jason raised his eyes. “Excuse me?”

“Cow poop,” she repeated.

Jason blinked.

“She means bullshit,” Roy said. “Don´t ask. You know it´s hard for Kory to get the hang of all our words, no matter how much time she´s been here.”

“Cow poop?” Jason echoed.

“The words are equivalent. Does the meaning not translate as well?” Kory asked.

“Not really. They can be interpreted as very different things. Plus, saying cow poop kind of takes away from the drama…”

“Kory, don´t let him change the subject!” Roy called out indignant, and he pressed closer to Jason enough to make him grunt.

“ _Roy…_ ”

“Tell us what´s wrong and I´ll stop hugging you to death.”

“Nothing is going on.”

“Kory?” And as soon as Roy said her name, she moved in closer too, her arms tightened, and Jason felt his left eye start to twitch.

“All right, all right!” he cried out, sucked in as much air as he could and slid out from between them, ending on the floor and glaring up at them. He glared for several minutes, and then… well, and then he… told them.

He told them about how Dick popped into his life, about how Dick had started talking to him about Conner. He told them about their very ugly conversation, what Dick had said, wanted, proposed. He told them what Kent had answered, what he himself had said.

By the time he was done, Roy and Kory had joined him on the floor. They had a hand on his thigh, and both of them looked compassionate, but curiously enough, not confused.

“And now you´re angry, confused, hurt and have no idea what to do with Dick,” Roy concluded like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Jason frowned at him. “I´m pissed. I´m not confused, much less am I hurt.”

Roy gave him a _look_ , and Kory even rolled her eyes, when that was something Jason had seen her do maybe twice in the three years he had known her.

“Right. And because you´re just angry, and not stressed out about the subject, you´re smoking like a chimney,” Roy went on.

“I´m pissed. He pisses me off. Kent pisses me off. What Dick said doesn´t make any sense, and that makes me even more angry. I just needed something to calm me down.”

“Right.”

“Right! Look, I don’t care what happens to Dick now. I don’t care what he does. Besides, like I said, the whole issue could already be resolved. Dick loves Kent, and Kent had no problem announcing he loved Dick as well. They could already be together, married and planning to adopt three kids for all I know.” Jason snorted. “For all I care, which is pretty much nothing. And even if they´re not, what type of weirdo asks two men who don’t like each other to be in a threesome with him? And not just for sex, but for like a relationship, dates and all that. How selfish is he being? How weird is it? It doesn’t make any sense.”

Kory tilted her head to one side. She glanced at Roy, then back at Jason, frowned. It looked like she was measuring her words, and when she spoke, Jason knew why.

“Jason, I do not understand why a threesome is an issue for you now,” she said, slowly. “As I recall, you were more than willing to join Roy and I in bed that time last year. The idea never seemed to disgust you, or scare you, I could not find, at the time, any sign that you did not want to join us. And I believe you told us about a week later that it had been quite fun.”

Jason´s eyes widened. He froze, felt the blush creep up his cheeks when Roy started chuckling and tried to hide it.

“She makes a good point,” Roy said.

“No she doesn’t,” Jason said. “That was different. It was a one-night thing, it was with you two, my best friends, and it was about sex. It was about the three of us having fun, and it was fun as hell.”

“Then why didn’t you want to do it again?”

“Because I´d be third-wheeling more than I am already. You two are in love and shit. You two work in the romantic way. We three work different.” Jason pursed his lips. “It was fun, yeah, but I don´t love you guys in a romantic way, and you don´t love me as more than a friend. It was bound to make things awkward and complicated if we ever did it again.” He frowned. “Also, from the way Kent talked to Dick, and from what Kent told me, even if I had agreed to do anything, it wouldn’t have been long until they pushed me out as well, whether they wanted it or not. Didn’t you hear what I said? Dick says he loves Kent. Kent loves him.”

“But Richard also said he loved _you_ ,” Kory pointed out.

“Yeah, but he could have meant it many ways and only because he really wants that threesome, I don’t know.”

“You don’t believe that,” Roy said with a smile. “And I think I just figured this whole thing out. You´re hurt, but more than that, I think you´re scared.”

“I´m not…!”

Roy clapped his hand over Jason´s mouth. “Yeah, you are. You´re afraid of saying yes to anything because you´re afraid you´ll end up third-wheeling again. You´re afraid that Dick will end up loving Kent more than you, that you´ll be pushed out of that relationship because Kent already loves Dick, and because you´re afraid their attention will focus on each other, that it won´t be as perfect as Dick makes it sound. You´re afraid Dick won´t love you as much as he loves Kent, and you´re scared because, flash news Jay, you love Dick too.”

Jason glared at him, slapped away Roy´s hand. “That´s all bullshit.”

“Is it?”

“I think Roy is right,” Kory said. “So it is not cow poop. You are scared you will enter this polyamorous relationship and that it will not include the three of you as Richard has expressed he wants to. You are scared of being cast to the side, but Jason? I think you are being too hard on Richard. He is not a bad man, is he Roy?”

“Not at all!” Roy said cheerfully. “I think Dick is exactly the kind of happy dude that would do Jason good. Dick is genuinely a cheerful, optimistic goofball that couldn’t lie if his life depended on it, and I think that´s very important, Jason. He loves you. Otherwise he wouldn’t have said it. He loves you, and yes, he also loves Kent. He wants to try something that will make the three of you happy. I don’t think his plan is to see with which one it works out best and then get rid of the other. He won´t push for this poly relationship because despite him wanting it, it wouldn’t make sense if you, Kent, or both didn’t.”

“Why are you defending him so much?” Jason snapped.

“Because I think that if it all works out, you´ll be so much happier, Jason. Imagine that, if it works out well, you´ll have not only one but two boyfriends. They´ll both love you.”

“Okay, first, I don´t want Kent to love me, nor do I want him as a boyfriend. Second, even if it did work out, they´d love me, but also love each other.”

“But that doesn’t mean you´re not their only and only,” Roy said, and now he looked mildly annoyed. “Jason, have you done any research? Have you tried finding more about how poly relationships work, and why? How happy it makes some people because of several reasons? Have you tried giving any of this a chance? Looking at how much you´ll gain if this works out?”

“But what if it doesn’t?” Jason put in.

Roy threw his hands up into the air. “Well, you and Dick don´t talk anymore and you already hate Kent, right? It´s not like you have anything to lose!”

Kory nodded rather enthusiastically, and she took Jason´s phone, lit the screen up, and came face to face with Dick´s text messages, and because it was Kory, she made sure to read Dick´s apologies out loud.

“Do your research, Jason,” she echoed.

“Yeah, and stop drowning in a glass of water. You don´t want to talk to Dick alone after all this? Talk to Kent, see what he thinks, and then talk to Dick. Give this a chance, Jason, it could give you so much,” Roy echoed.

“And if it does not work. I will kill them and Roy will hide the bodies. We will make sure they never hurt you again,” Kory said, and… boy was she serious.

Jason stared at the two redheads for a while, then he shook his head, chuckled.

“Fine,” he said in the end. “Fine. I´ll google my questions. I´ll look at it from another angle… I guess talking to Kent wouldn’t be that bad an idea. Anyone knows how I can contact him?”

When Roy grinned and pulled up Kent´s number in his phone, Jason didn’t know whether to hug him or hit him.

 

* * *

 

Clark and Jon came to visit Sunday morning. Conner had spent the rest of Saturday afternoon and most of the night thinking about Dick, but more than that, he´d been thinking about Dick´s proposal, a proposal that had gone wrong in every way and that Conner couldn’t let go.

He hadn’t reached many conclusions by the time he realized it was already three in the morning on a Sunday and that he was still awake. He didn’t reach any conclusions during the six or seven hours he got of sleep after that. When he woke to loud knocking at his apartment´s door and the very loud, very adorable cries of, “Uncle!” his mind was still muddy and disastrous.

Conner rolled over in bed and stared at the ceiling of his apartment for a couple of seconds, wondering whether he should get up or not to open the door. Even if he didn’t, last he knew Clark had invited himself to one of Conner´s spare keys so any moment he could…

The lock clicked. The door creaked. There was the sound of a bag hitting the floor, the running footsteps, and Jon was climbing onto the bed and worming under the covers before Conner could even decide what to do.

“Hi, uncle Conner!” Jon cried.

Well, now he didn’t have more time to try and reach any conclusions.

“Hey,” Conner mumbled, and made room for the boy to hang onto a pillow and burrow himself into the covers. “Good to see you, Jon.”

“Good to see you too! Dad said you´d be awake by now. Good thing you were.”

He couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Yeah, good thing. Where´s Clark?”

“Picking up his shoes and backpack,” Clark laughed, walking into the room and carrying said items in his arms. “Good morning, Conner.”

“Hey,” Conner repeated. “What brings you guys into town on a weekend?”

“We had some emergency meetings yesterday, and I have to oversee several of the branch offices between this week and the next. I thought I´d start with Central City, then go on ahead to Keystone. Lois is in Egypt covering some big assignment, and it´s my week with Jon anyway so…” Clark shrugged.

Conner sat up in bed, rubbed his eyes. “How´s the divorce coming along?”

“Almost done, and the custody arrangement is already settled,” Clark said rather happily. “What about you? How are you? How´s university life?”

University life? His university life was good. He was attending all his courses, his grades hadn’t dropped, he was still captain of the baseball team and he had a good feeling about the season.

How was _he_ doing? That was another thing entirely.

“I´m not great,” he admitted, but before Clark could ask any questions, Conner rolled out of bed, picked up Jon and carried the squealing boy into the kitchen with the promise of blueberry hotcakes and chocolate milk.

Jon kept Conner and Clark busy the rest of the morning, then the rest of the afternoon, and with Jon wanting to go to practice to Uncle Conner´s training field, wanting to have lunch in Uncle Conner´s favorite coffee shop, wanting to visit some of Uncle Conner´s favorite places in campus, and then deciding to go the Chuck E. Cheese´s Uncle Conner had told him about the last time Jon had called, he and Clark didn’t have enough time to talk until they were sitting at one of the little tables, eating pizza and watching Jon run around the place.

“So about what you said this morning…” Clark began.

Conner picked up his third slice of pizza, took a bite. “I knew you´d bring that up as soon as you had the chance.”

“Well, I couldn’t ignore it. Your usual answer is ‘I´m good’. Anything other than that means there´s something going on, and you´ve tried to hide it well, but you´ve been worried all day long, frowning like I hadn’t seen in years. Is everything all right with the team?”

Conner nodded.

“With your studies?”

“Yeah.”

“Then it must be something personal.” Clark pushed his glasses further up his nose, frowned. “What´s wrong, Conner?”

Conner took another bite of his pizza. He chewed slowly, swallowed just as low. He stared at the pepperoni on top of the cheese.

“Conner?” Clark asked after several minutes had gone by.

“I´m in love with somebody,” Conner deadpanned.

Clark blinked, processed the words, then blinked again. “Oh. You are?”

“Yes.”

“Oh… oh. Well, that´s great! Congratulations! It has been a while. I mean, after you and Megan dated your freshman year in high school you haven´t really liked nor loved anybody.”

Conner nodded, frowned.

The smile that had been forming disappeared from Clark´s face. “I guess the news aren’t that great. What´s the problem? She doesn’t like you back?”

“It´s a ‘he’.”

Clark didn’t miss a beat. “He doesn’t like you back? Is he straight?”

Conner´s frown deepened. He shook his head.

Clark looked a little bit lost. “What´s the issue then?”

“I´m in love with this guy, and he says he loves me back, but he´s also in love with this other man, the captain of the football team and someone I am not very fond of. The three of us talked yesterday, and him, the man I love, proposed us a threesome. However, as I understand it, it isn’t a sexual threesome, but a polyamorous relationship what he has in mind.”

Clark´s mouth dropped. He blinked once, twice, thrice, then one fourth time. “… What?” he finally asked.

Conner took a deep breath, took another bite, then told Clark everything he knew, had seen and lived until this point. Much to their amazement, even by the time Conner was done talking and Clark was done thinking, Jon still had coins for the games and was running around making friends a mile a minute.

“And what are you going to do?” Clark asked in the end, sipping from his glass and looking curious as ever.

Conner glanced at Jon out of the corner of his eye, then focused his attention back on Clark. “I don’t know. That´s why I´ve been tossing and turning inside my head since yesterday. I don’t know what to do, or if I should do anything at all.”

“Well. Um.” Clark looked lost, then tried to look confident, failed, looked even more lost than before. “This is quite the…unusual situation. But then again, Dick Grayson sounds like an unusual man.”

“He is,” Conner agreed. “But he´s not bad… he isn’t. Despite how confused I feel, despite the fact that I don´t understand why Dick can´t love one person, and why he… won´t choose me, I know he never did any of this because he´s mean, or evil. He´s… sweet, Clark. He´s sweet, he´s loud, he´s cheerful, and I know he never wanted to use Todd and me. He genuinely thought this could work, that even if Todd and I got mad that we´d give this a chance.”

“Because he has that much faith in your feelings for him?”

“No. Because he is an optimist and heart and will always hope for the best, and he´s innocent in several ways. He doesn’t expect bad things from people. He believed. He had faith in his plan, and in Todd´s and my reactions. It´s unsettling, but at the same time…” He shrugged. “I think it´s adorable. I think he´s adorable, and I also think I don’t want to lose the… light he sort of brings with himself everywhere he goes. However, I´m afraid I might have done just that.”

Clark pushed his glass farther on the table. He leaned his forearms on top of it, his chin on his arms. “Sounds like you really care about this guy.”

“I do. I told you, I love him.”

“What about the other guy? It doesn’t sound like you hate him.”

“I don´t. I don´t dislike him, but it´s not like I love him. He´s… cool.”

“If Dick weren´t there, would you be willing to have a relationship with him?”

“With Todd?” Conner shrugged. “I would. Sure, we ended up hating each other for a while when we first got into college, but now? He´s cool. I´ve gotten to know him through Dick, and I… like what I know well enough.”

Clark nodded, frowned, the nodded again. “So… from what I understand, your issue isn’t the whole polyamorous issue, your issue is…”

“That I don’t want to share Dick with someone I don’t know well enough,” Conner concluded.

Clark gave him wide eyes. “I was going to say that you weren´t sure you wanted to enter a poly relationship simply because you didn’t like Todd enough yet, but sure, what you said works too.”

Conner gave a lop-sided smile. “No. I think I´m just being possessive. I told Dick yesterday I wanted him for myself, and I do. If Todd, Dick and I do this then Todd will have Dick as well, and I´m not sure I want to… share the attention, the time, the dates.”

“But if you do this, you can get to know this Todd better, and sure, you´d have to share Dick, but Dick would also have to share Todd with you, right?” Clark asked. “I mean, say you and Dick go on a date one day, the next day you and Todd can go on another date. Maybe you´d have less of Dick, but you´d have a lot more of Todd.” Clark made a face. “We´re making this sound like we´re talking about pieces of cakes or something.”

Conner´s smile widened. “It´s a simple way to talk about it. You know I only understand simple stuff.”

Clark barked a laugh. He shook his head, leaned back on his chair. “So what are you going to do?”

Conner leaned back in his own chair. He tilted his head to the ceiling rocked back and forth a couple of times. “Looking at the proposal with a cool head, it´s not bad, and it could work out quite perfectly. If this is what Dick wants, I think I´m willing to try it. The thing is, I don’t know whether Todd will want to give it a shot,” he said.

“Then why don´t you contact him and ask him?”

“I think I will,” he conceded, sighed. “But not until I talk to Dick first.”

He called Dick when he got home that night. Jon had decided he wanted to spend the night at Uncle Conner´s apartment, so Conner waited until he had put the little boy in bed to call Dick.

The call was short, full of a nervous and apologetic Dick and a calm but firm Conner. Conner asked Dick to come to his apartment the following morning to talk, Dick agreed, sounding quite relieved, and said he´d be there when Conner chose.

“Have breakfast with me,” Conner said as he prepared his makeshift bed in the couch. “We´ll talk then, and please stop apologizing. I´m not mad, Dick. Just come here for breakfast, all right? Everything is fine.”

Dick said yes, and Conner went to bed with a smile.

He woke early the next morning, found out he was still smiling, and went to the kitchen to prepare Jon´s second favorite breakfast: breakfast burritos.

Dick got there just as he was done making the fourth burrito and just as the coffee pot pinged to indicate it was ready.

“Hey,” Dick said when Conner opened the door. He stood there awkwardly, a shy smile on his face, a box of donuts held between both hands. “Good morning. Thanks… ah, thanks for inviting me over. I know you like donuts so I just… went and… decided to buy a couple for… um…”

Conner leaned in and kissed his cheek. “Don´t act so nervous, it doesn’t suit you.”

Dick froze, stared at Conner with wide, surprised eyes. After a few seconds he lowered his gaze, chuckled. “I´m sorry. I wasn’t sure… I´m not sure… what to expect. I´m worried that you´re mad, or that you…”

“I´m not mad. I´m not angry, Dick. I´m not luring you in for a trap either. I have something to say to you, and it might take a while, so please come on in, breakfast is ready.” Conner held the door, and Dick stepped inside as he let out another soft laugh. His whole demeanor changed however, when he saw the pile of burritos.

“Oh my God, you really do have everything ready! And it smells amazing in here. Have you been awake for long?”

“Not really. Burritos are easy to do, plus I have a lot of practice. Take a seat.” Conner went for the coffeepot, poured a cup for Dick and one for himself, then handed it to Dick and sat at the breakfast bar.

Dick sat across from him, took his cup and eyed him curiously. “So, um, I wanted to apolo…”

“I want to do it.”

Dick almost dropped his cup, along with his mouth. “Huh?”

“The threesome. The polyamorous relationship. I want to try and make it something real between you, Todd and myself.”

Dick gaped at him. “But I thought you didn’t… and I perfectly understand… I mean, I won´t force either of you to do anything. That´s why I was staying away, you didn’t want me close and…”

“Dick, listen.” Conner frowned at him. “I know what I said, and I am sorry for reacting the way I did.”

“Oh. It was perfectly understandable, both your and Jason´s reactions. I know what I said and what I proposed was very unusual.”

“That doesn’t mean that my reaction was the best. I owe you an apology, and Todd does as well.”

Dick looked bewildered, then confused, then shy. He lowered his gaze to the bar, held his cup between his hands. “It is all right. You don´t have to apologize.”

Conner sighed, laid his hand on top of Dick´s, which earned him another surprised look. “I am sorry,” he repeated.

Dick blinked a couple of times. “Apology accepted,” he said finally. “And I´m also sorry. For not telling you guys before.”

“I also accept your apology,” Conner said, and since Dick didn’t pull back his hands, Conner kept his there. “Now, back to what´s important. I want to give this a chance.”

“Are you… are you sure?”

“Yes, I´m sure. I still don’t understand everything there is about a polyamorous relationship, but I now know that if we do this, and if it works out, I won´t lose you to Todd, like I thought at first. If this works out, I will share you with Todd, but you will share me with Todd, right?”

Dick´s eyes widened, but he nodded.

“This means that I will get your attention, but also Todd´s, and Todd will get both our attentions as well.”

“Of course!” Dick cried, looking more surprised than ever. “I mean… yes, what you just said. I know at first this sounds like I want to keep you and Jason to myself, waiting on me hand and foot, but that´s not it. Being polyamorous would mean you and I go on dates, you and Jason go on dates, Jason and I go on dates, and of course, the three of us going on dates together. It´s not about coveting one person and keeping the other as a fling. This… what I would wish the three of us try is… about opening our hearts and coming to like and love more than one person. Sex would work the same way, everyone with everyone, as a couple or threesome, it´s all a matter of talking. What I want is… to have a chance to share my life with both of you, and to have each of you share your life with each other and with me.”

Conner stared at him for several seconds, then took in a deep breath. Nodded. “Count me in, then,” he said. “I want to try this too. I want this to work. I want to have this experience with you, and with Todd. Like you said yesterday, I don´t hate him. I´m willing to… open up and feel for him the same way I feel for you.”

Dick perked up in his chair, and Conner had never seen such a happy, relieved smile before. It was beautiful, and it made him give a smile of his own.

“Thank you,” Dick murmured. “Thank you so much for giving me this chance, but above all, for trusting me and giving _us_ a chance. You´re one of the sweetest and trusting men I have ever met, you know?”

Conner thought about replying with some cheesy, lame pick-up sort of thing. However, he wasn’t very good with any of them, so instead he leaned in, cupped Dick´s face between his hands and leaned in.

Dick´s breath ran out, his eyes widened, and for a split second he also seemed to lean in. In the end, however, he turned his face, and Conner ended up kissing his cheek.

“I´m so sorry,” Dick whispered. “Conner, I´m so sorry. I know I haven’t really given in with everything, and please don’t think I don’t want to kiss you… I do… lord knows I do, but I can´t do it… not until…”

Conner sighed, pulled back. He rubbed his hand over his face. “Not until Todd knows,” he said, just as soft.

“Yes. I´m sorry. Polyamorous relationships work only when everyone knows what is going on, and with everyone is ok with said things. Taking the next step with either of you, without the other one knowing feels like I´d betray the other,” Dick said. “And I can´t do that. I won´t hurt you, not if I can avoid it. Conner, I´m so…”

Conner reached out with one hand and tangled it in Dick´s hair, which was even softer than it looked. “Very well. And speaking of which, we have to convince Todd,” he said, then pressed his lips against Dick´s forehead. “Have you tried contacting him?”

“I didn’t dare call. I texted him nonstop though… at least until yesterday. When Jason says he doesn’t want someone or something near, he means it.”

“Leave it to me then. I´ll try my best to talk to him, and then you talk to him, and we work together so he can give this a chance. Seems like a good plan?”

Dick was silent for a few seconds, then he nodded. “Sounds like an awesome plan,” he said.

Conner nodded too. He began to comb his fingers through Dick´s hair, but before he could do it for long, there was a yawn, and a sleepy Jon wandered into the kitchen, carrying his stuffed toy dog with him, one that had been Conner´s and he´d given to Clark and Lois when Jon was born.

“Morning,” Jon yawned, rubbing his with a little fist and walking straight towards Conner, holding his arms out to be picked up.

“Good morning, Jon,” Conner said, picking up the little boy. “Did you sleep well?”

“Yes! Your bed is really soft! And I was dreaming of burritos… wait, but it still smells like…” Jon yawned, then blinked at the pile of burritos in front of him, then seemed to notice Dick just sitting there, and he gave his best welcoming smile, shook his dog in the air by greeting. “Hi-hi! Are you Uncle Conner´s friend? You came because you also smelled burritos?”

Dick seemed too flabbergasted and overcome with cuteness to answer.

Conner rolled his eyes. Yeah, Jon tended to have that effect on people. “Jon, this is Dick. He´s someone very special to me. Dick, this is Jonathan, my nephew. He and his dad are in town for a few days and…”

Before Conner could even finish, Dick was on his feet and scooping Jon out of his arms and holding him tight, smiling, talking almost too fast to understand, and while Jon looked surprised at first, soon he was also talking at an abnormal speed and laughing and waggling his toy around.

Conner raised an eyebrow, chuckled ever so slightly, then reached for the backpack Dick had left on the bar. He found the phone soon enough, and because it was Dick there was no lock.

He had Jason´s phone number saved a minute later, and he made a mental note to call him as soon as possible.

 

* * *

 

Conner had planned to call Jason that very day, but having Jon and Clark in town kept him too busy, busy enough he didn’t attend class after Dick left his apartment, and the next day wasn’t any better. Clark had urgent matters to attend to and couldn’t bring Jon into the office, so he asked Conner to watch him. The day was spent babysitting the easily entertained and extremely energetic Jon. The day went by in a blur, and it wasn’t until he was done bathing Jon and washing the stuffed dog that he remembered he had a phone.

Mainly, he remembered because his phone began ringing.

He almost dropped the phone when he saw Jason Todd´s name flash on the screen.

“Yes?” he answered, bringing up the phone to his ear.

“Hey, Kent? It´s Jason. Jason Todd.”

“Yes,” Conner said again.

Jason was silent on the other end, then he let out a curse.

“Can I talk to you?” Jason muttered. “I… I wanted to talk to you before I talked to Dick. About what happened last weekend.”

Conner searched his brain for something to say to that. He came up empty, managed to utter another useless, “Yes?”

“Jesus Christ, Kent, what happened to your pretty and polite speech? You okay?”

“I am. I didn’t expect you to call is all, but I _was_ going to call you.”

Jason made a noise. “Have you and Dick talked?”

“We have.”

“Have you decided what you want to do? Regarding what Dick said. Or are you two together now?”

Conner didn’t know if it was his imagination or not that made Jason´s voice sound softer with the last bit.

“No. We´re not. Dick and I talked,” Conner repeated. “And I told him I´d give it a shot. I want to try and have a polyamorous relationship. Of course, we can´t possibly do that if you don´t…”

“I want to try.”

And if Conner had been speechless before, now he couldn’t even utter another ‘yes’.

Jason snorted. “You know what? Let´s not do this over the phone. I´m going to call Dick, and then I´ll get back to you with an address and a time. You free this Friday night?”

Conner had never said ‘yes’ so fast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As per usual, my apologies for any mistakes. It´s late and I´m tired and I probably didn´t check it all to well... again, I´m sorry ;A;!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter is here! Well, kinda LOL. The thing got out of my hands (again) so I decided to split the chapter in two (again). I apologize for the late update and the inconveniences, but hopefully the other part will be up Sunday or Monday, we´ll see ;) 
> 
> Also, I guess a warning? because there will be slut-shaming in this chapter so yeah... you´ve been warned
> 
> And above and foremost, a huge, huge, huge, thank you to my savior [Lorelain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LorelainMichaelis/pseuds/LorelainMichaelis) for betaing this part of the chapter and making sure I didn´t mess up more than usual LOL. Thank you, thank, thank youuuu!

Seeing Kent come out of his shell was… interesting, to say the least. Of course, it wasn’t like he had ever taken any interest at all in Kent, but he had made up his mind about what he was like, had an impression of him that had stuck for the past couple of years, and to be fair, he hadn’t been completely wrong. Kent always struck him as a really mature and no-nonsense kind of guy, but not broody. Kent also seemed to be the type of guy who didn’t open up to everybody he talked to. Jason could relate with the last part, but he was sure he could relate for different reasons. Jason was a cautious son of a bitch, which was why he had a lot of trouble opening up and telling people personal things, why it took him a long time to be himself around people. Kent, however, didn’t seem to distrust people. He just seemed to be… shy, and awkward.

Or had been at the beginning of the night anyway.

Jason called down the bartender and asked for another nonalcoholic beer. He smoked sometimes, yeah, but he drew the line with the alcohol or any other type of drug. He loved football, he loved his team like they were his brothers – some of them he even treated as if they were his own kids – and he wouldn’t do anything to put himself or anything regarding his team at risk, so nonalcoholic beers at a local nightclub it was.

The bartender pulled up a new bottle, popped it open and handed it to Jason. He took a swig, spun in his stool and went back to staring.

The night hadn’t started off very well. Calling Dick had been awkward and painful for him, but it had also been painful for Dick, and if his very surprised and cautious tone on the phone hadn’t been indication enough, the fact that when the three of them met in front of the club Dick looked like he wanted to hide behind Conner until the end of the world came…

Jason had tried to apologize. He had wanted to apologize, but Dick had spoken first. Dick had apologized again – he had done it at least thrice on the phone – and he´d also looked at Jason with big, round and very honest blue eyes that had flustered him enough that he stepped into the club without so much as a grumble and a frown.

Conner had scolded him fifteen minutes into the evening. Dick had been trying to talk to him all the while, Jason hadn’t known what to do, and Conner had been watching in utter and complete silence. Until Dick said he needed to go to the bathroom. As soon as Dick was across the club, Conner brought both hands onto the bar, where they´d managed to snag three exact seats, and glared at him.

“You were the one who called Dick and me, Todd. You were the one that wanted to meet in person and talk stuff out. You were the one who let Dick pick the place, you were the first one to agree to come to the club, then you called me to tell me we´d meet here, so don´t start acting like you´re the one who doesn’t want to be here. Don´t act like you want this to be over with as soon as possible.”

Jason was already frustrated and annoyed with himself, and Conner´s words didn’t help one little bit.

“So this is all my fault?” he snapped.

“I´m not blaming anyone, Todd. I´m saying get your crap together, look Dick in the eye and apologize so we may enjoy our night at the club,” Conner replied with a frown. “He´s not having fun, you´re not having fun, and I´m so not having fun either.”

“I didn’t think you were the type of person who would enjoy being in a club.”

“Not usually,” Conner conceded, “but Dick loves to dance, you know that right? He´s in gymnastics, but just as easy he could pursue a career in dancing. I´ve seen him dance about two or three times, and I want to see him dance again. I also want to dance with him.”

Jason tilted his head to the side. “You can dance?”

“No, but I want to try and learn with him.”

Jason narrowed his eyes. He stared at Conner in silence for a few seconds, then scoffed. “You are such a pathetic lovesick dork, Kent. It´s disturbing.”

Conner raised an eyebrow. “Disturbing? You say it like you´re not a lovesick dork yourself.”

“I´m not. I don´t love Dick, and I sure as hell don´t love you. I´m not even sure I really like you.”

“You´re just doing this because Dick has a decent butt and hopefully he´ll forget me and the two of you will get to have your own fun, but not a relationship because heck no, you don´t want a relationship?” Conner guessed, and stupid jerk, he looked too smug for Jason´s liking.

“Yes, to everything you just said,” he muttered.

Conner rolled his eyes. “Right.” He turned his head, pushed up from his stool. “Well, if you want to stay here and pretend to be a cool guy and an asshole, be my guest. Dick is coming back, and I don’t want him to be bored or uncomfortable any longer.” And before Jason could really respond to that, Conner had walked into the crowd and out of sight.

Jason thought of leaving right there and then. He thought how it was the perfect chance to just leave and never speak of this again. He didn’t have to stay. If this is how it began, going any further wouldn´t fix the situation. It just wouldn’t. Maybe the best choice was to leave having accepted Dick´s apologies and then text him to apologize back at him.

No, that was not a good idea. It actually seemed to be the worst possible idea he could ever have

So he decided to stay. He wiggled around in his seat to be as comfortable as possible, leaned his elbows back on the bar and ordered his first beer.

He got kind of distracted after that. He didn’t know whether it was intentional on Conner or Dick´s part, but soon enough the two of them had managed to position themselves in the middle of the dance floor, right in front of where Jason was sitting, and with the crowd thinning out every couple of minutes, Jason could see how Conner began… changing? Unfolding? Opening up? He wasn’t sure what to call it.

It had taken some convincing to get Dick to head out to the dance floor instead of going back at the bar, Jason had also seen that exchange, but as soon as he agreed, seemed to realize Conner was serious about dancing… Dick grabbed Conner´s hands and began dancing. Conner on the other hand, had stared at Dick for two whole songs before Dick seemed to prompt him to start moving. That´s when Conner started out, and not to Jason´s surprise, he began moving like he was the most awkward person in the world and didn’t seem to remember how to coordinate his feet.

Jason had almost laughed at how lost he looked, but the laughter soon died, since Conner proved to be… quite the fast learner. The awkward feet shuffling and stiff hip thrusting soon shifted into very shy and discreet yet coordinated movements. The chest and arms movement came a bit later, when the music changed and Conner tried to mirror what Dick was doing. Again, he began moving his arms and shoulders in a way that Jason couldn’t label as anything but embarrassing. And again, he got better as the minutes and songs went on. Before his eyes, he saw Conner go from clapping seal to a… decent dancer.

Part of the progress could be due to the teacher he had, though.

Dick was another thing altogether, Jason had known that since before the club. Dick was in the cheerleading team, he did gymnastics for sport and for fun, his movements overall were always light, graceful and dance-like. Dick had become part of the crowd and the music right away, Conner´s awkwardness and limited space not bothering him at all. Dick had begun moving, adapted to the song playing, and the only word that came to mind to describe how he danced was water. Dick danced and flowed like water. His feet seemed to touch the ground in a delicate way, his hips rolled and swayed sensually, his chest and arms moved in the same way. Despite not doing any outstanding movements, not having enough space to do twirls or anything flashy, Dick still managed to look alluring, to be enthralling, and Jason assumed, to be inspiring for Conner.

Dick danced, Dick moved, Dick invited, and since Conner didn’t want to stay behind, he slowly learned and opened up, and Jason kept a record of all the little but steady changes.

Two songs since they started dancing, Conner had inched in closer. Five songs in, he was now the one holding Dick´s hands instead of the other way around. Two songs after that, Conner had pulled Dick against his chest. Next, their legs were moving in sync, Conner´s hands had moved from Dick´s shoulders to his sides to his waist and there was the hint of a smile on his face. Then the whole music genre changed, and Dick pulled away at times, but Conner made sure to pull him back in, wrapping an arm around his waist this time and leaning in as if to whisper one thing or another. Conner finally laughed when Dick ended up wrapping his arms around his neck, and Jason could see even from where he was the twinkle in those blue-grey eyes, the honest edge of the smile, the somewhat dangerous hint in his expression. Halfway into the little show Conner and Dick had put on, Dick wasn’t the one leading anymore. Conner had all but trapped Dick between his body and the invisible line that was their little piece of dance floor. Jason saw the gradual changes, how at one point Dick´s blush and too wide eyes were more than visible, how he clung to Conner´s tight shirt, how delicately he touched the hairs at the back of Conner´s neck.

Dick had slowly been pulled out of his element, Conner had owned the dance floor just as slow, and if Jason were honest… seeing the dynamic shift, seeing Conner finally let himself go, seeing Dick overwhelmed for once…

He kind of liked it. He sort of liked seeing this stronger, bolder side of the guy he always thought was a bit lame because of a lack of backbone. He also liked seeing Dick finally flustered – in a good way, scaring Dick didn’t count – and finally showing some sign of… arousal? Was Dick aroused? Was Conner aroused? Well, Conner had probably been turned on since Dick started dancing, but now Dick had to be turned on as well.

Jason was a bit aroused himself.

He choked on his latest sip of beer as soon as the thought hit him, and he turned around in his stool, hoping the blush didn’t make its way all up to his ears, thought maybe it was there already. Was he going to end up as red as Dick was out there on the floor? He sure hoped not. The light tremble of his body, the dazed eyes, rosy cheeks and half parted lips were a good look on Dick´s face, and maybe seeing Conner just as flushed with the little impish smile he had just discovered would be kind of interesting too.

He closed his eyes, shook his head and fondled the bar until he found his bottle. He brought it up to his lips and took the biggest sip he could, swallowed, then repeated the process. He needed a new one, and not because he had already emptied the bottle but because he needed something colder, and fast.

“Go and dance with him.”

Conner´s voice came from too close and _not_ cold at all. He managed not to jump, though he did squeeze the bottle harder than he should. He opened his eyes, turned around in slow-motion and found Conner invading the hell out of his personal face, chest heaving, eyes darker than Jason had ever seen, covered in a light sheen of sweat and… how was he emitting so much body heat from dancing? Jason got like that, but only during practice and games.

“Personal space,” he muttered, raised an eyebrow and leaned back to put minimal distance between them.

It took a couple of seconds for Conner to make sense of those two words, but when he did he didn’t move an inch. “Get off your stool and go out into the dance floor,” Conner replied.

“I don’t want to dance, plus you and Dick are having oh so much fun. Wouldn’t want to ruin your night.” And maybe that came out more bitter than he intended. Maybe.

“This is not Dick´s and my night. This isn’t your night to brood alone either, Todd. This is supposed to be _our_ night. It´s…” Conner seemed to search for the right words. “It´s our first date. It´s a date for the three of us, our first attempt to see if this is a good idea, if what Dick proposed works out between us. I know that if this night doesn’t go well, Dick will want to try again, but I´m not that sure about either of us, especially you. I want to try, I really do, but if you and Dick can´t talk to each other and you keep…” again, Conner scrambled for words. “if you keep _handing_ him to me in a silver platter, I´m not sure I´ll want to try and share him again. If we don´t give it our all tonight, we won´t try again. You´ll have your petty reasons and I´ll have my own petty reasons, as I´ve already said.”

Jason felt like cold water had been poured down his back. He shivered, grunted, pressed his lips tight. Conner was serious, because of course he always was serious, and that made Jason feel conflicted. Was it a declaration of war? A warning? Did it even matter to Jason? Did Jason even want to get involved with the two of them? Why on Earth had he even agreed to this in the first place? And why couldn’t Conner stop being so damn pushy and straightforward?

“Are you doing this because you really do love him and want to humor him? Because you think that even if I do try he´ll end up choosing you in the end? So it´s like a win-win for you because you´ll look like the best boyfriend material and will come out on top if this doesn’t work, but if it does then you still get Dick as a partner?” he snapped.

Conner snorted, leaned in even closer, eyes narrowed. “I´m doing this because you can´t bullshit me so easily, Todd. I´m not the smartest guy by far, from what Dick says I hear you´re the brilliant one, but I´m not so easily tricked. If you want me to buy your petty and mean guy routine, you´ll have to try harder. If you want me to believe you don’t have feelings for Dick, that you don’t care about him, that you haven´t been watching us dance for the past hour and had even the slightest desire to join us, that you want to talk to Dick so the ugly stuff gets out of the way and the three of us can finally get a chance… then up your game, Todd. I´m not buying.”

And with that Conner had pulled back, fallen into an empty stool and was asking the bartender for a big glass of water.

Jason straightened in his seat. He lowered his gaze to his warm bottle. He began peeling the sticker off. He listened as the bartender told Conner they didn’t serve water, then how the two of them went through the list of cocktails and drinks available with Conner shaking his head every time.

Jason got through peeling half the sticker off. “Give him one of these and put it on me,” he told the bartender, and lifted his own bottle, then got to his feet and rubbed hand down his face.

The bartender went in search of the bottle. Conner turned to him, raised both eyebrows. “Did I manage to knock some common sense into you?”

“Shut up. You read me like an open book. Can you read Dick too?”

“He _is_ an open book, it´s not like I have to try too hard.”

Jason nodded. “You gave me a rundown of myself. I want one on him.”

Conner´s eyebrows climbed up even higher. He rolled his eyes, took the bottle when the bartender came back and handed it over. He pressed the bottle against his lips.

“Despite how much fun it looked like he was having, he kept glancing at you to make sure you were okay and still here,” Conner began. “He wasn’t completely into the dance. He wants to talk to you. He wants you to be here with him, with us. He´s hopeful, Todd, but you know he´s always hopeful. He cares for you as much as he cares for me. He loves you. He wants you. He wants this to work out, or if it doesn’t, he at least wants to be on good terms with you.”

Jason nodded again. He gritted his teeth, fisted his hands, then took a first step and froze.

Conner took his first sip of beer. “You might also want to get out there sooner rather than later. A guy kept looking at him from one of the tables, and a waiter came by twice to offer Dick a drink, which he declined of course. Seemed strange to me, but you know how club logic works. Dancing with someone helps keep unwanted suitors at bay. Dancing alone? Not so much.”

Jason whipped his head to stare at Conner in disbelief. “From how you were dancing at first, I got the impression you hadn’t come to clubs before.”

“I hadn’t, but my friend Cassie has, and she explained all the survival rules to me before we came here.”

“And even knowing that you left Dick alone on the dance floor?” It seemed an outrageous thing to do, especially for Conner.

Conner took another sip. “Up until two minutes ago he was still in my line of sight, and he was just having fun with no one hitting on him.”

Of course. “Are you his dad? Is he a kid?” Jason muttered.

“No. He´s one of the men I hope I have a relationship with, one not too aware of his surroundings, distracted enough to end up dancing against the man who offered him the drinks without even realizing it, and by the time he did, it could be too late” Conner said. “I was also saving that bit of information if you got too difficult. Did it work?”

Given Jason was now searching the crowd trying to find an oblivious idiot, yeah, it did.

“Fuck you,” he muttered, and damn Kent and his own stupid and weak heart to hell, he walked straight into the crowd and in search of Dick. Jason did have feelings for Dick – and thinking that felt like swallowing a sour pill – and one of those feelings was worry.

 

* * *

 

 

Dick could feel it. Dick could feel him. Dick knew he was looking, could feel the weight of those intense eyes roam over his body like a very unpleasant and slimy hand traveling down his back. He didn’t need to have his eyes open to know or feel any of that, which was why he still had them closed. It was easier to try and ignore the man this way. It was the better and easier option. It was the…

Hands grabbed his, and he was opening his eyes, jumping and pulling back all at once. The hands around his tightened, and Dick tensed up, got ready to pull as hard as he could. If he managed to break free he was going to slip between the crowd and…

“Dick, Dick, Dick! It´s me! It´s okay, Dick!”

He knew that voice.

He stopped thrashing and turned wide eyes to… Jason. It was Jason standing close to him, Jason looking at him worriedly, Jason holding his hands between his bigger, stronger ones. It was Jason.

“Oh,” Dick murmured. “Jason. Hi.”

“What happened? Are you all right?”

He blinked. “Yeah, of course I´m fine.”

“You were thrashing a minute ago. What happened?”

“Nothing.” Jason gave him a look. “Nothing happened, I promise. I… I just got scared for a moment there.”

Jason frowned. He stared at Dick in confused and suspicious silence for a few seconds, then pulled on Dick´s hands so he was held tight against his chest. It took Dick off guard, and he was blushing and staring up at him in surprised confusion soon after.

“Kent said something about a man offering you a drink and watching you from a table. Did he approach you in the time Kent left and I came here?” Jason asked.

Dick blinked once more, then almost snorted. Of course Conner would pay attention not only the drink but as to who had sent it and why. It was… nice to know Conner had noticed and was worried. It was even nicer to see Jason was also worried.

“No, he didn’t approach me. He didn’t come near me,” he assured Jason, daring to raise a hand and lean it against Jason´s arm.

“Then why did you panic? It had to be related to that man, unless you suffer from something neither Kent nor I know,” Jason said, frowning at him.

Dick stopped patting his arm. He looked away, sighed, then looked to the other side. “I was alert, okay? In case he did come by and talked to me or tried to touch me. I´ve felt him looking at me since Conner left for the bar, and I was preparing myself in case he made his way over while I was alone.”

“Why didn’t you go back to the bar with Conner? You want to dance that badly?”

He shrugged. “I did want to keep dancing, and I didn’t want to worry Conner. Which was stupid and pointless, I guess. He notices everything, you know? You see those eyes move and they pick up many more things that what you could guess.”

Jason rolled his eyes. “He is an observant son of a bitch. Way too straightforward and analytical for his own good too.”

Dick couldn’t help but look surprised again, more so when he noticed there was no hint of sarcasm in his voice, only amusement.

Dick allowed himself a small smile. “He is quite straightforward, isn’t he? Did he tell you to come watch me so I didn’t get lost between the crowd? He gets all paranoid and protective from time to time.”

Jason rolled his eyes again, harder this time. “He said to come dance with you, to make sure you weren´t kidnapped, but he also told me to come and talk to you.” Jason´s face sobered at that, and he sighed. “On the last note, I guess I do owe you one apology, or several, because of what I said back at the coffee shop and how I acted when we arrived. I… I´m sorry, Dick. I know I acted like a complete asshole to you, and for that I do apologize.”

It wasn’t easy to say those words, Dick could see it in Jason´s face. It wasn’t easy to apologize, not because he didn’t mean it, but because… he didn’t know how? Because he wasn’t sure how to put feelings into words? Maybe Conner wasn’t the only awkward one.

Dick smiled, went back to patting Jason´s arm. “It´s all right, Jason. I know that what I asked you for was sudden and too much. I know it looked real bad from your end, and you really had all the reasons to be mad at me.”

“Well yeah, but I didn’t have to act like that,” Jason muttered, wrinkling his nose. He took several deep breaths, let them out slowly. “I didn’t have to be so rude to you. I´m sorry, and I´m sorry for ignoring your apologies and looking like I didn’t want to be here.”

“You _did_ call me first,” Dick pointed out. “But I chose the club for our meeting place, that I do admit.”

Jason let out a grunt. “Either way, however it happened now we´re here, and you and I need to talk because otherwise Kent is going to throw you over his shoulder and take you home and will never let me see you again.” He breathed in deep. “And… and… I don´t want that. I called you and Kent because I wanted to give this a try… even if it backfires on me.”

Dick tilted his head to the side, watched as a frown appeared on Jason´s face again, and Dick had had enough of those. He raised a hand and smoothed his thumb over Jason´s brow until the frown disappeared, then he beamed, wrapped his arms around the taller man´s neck and began swaying. They had been standing still for far too long, and he loved the song that was now playing.

Jason fell into step with him with relative ease, and Dick was surprised once again. “You dance?”

“You´ve met Kory. She tried taking dance courses back in our first year in university. Roy and I ‘offered’ to help her practice.”

Dick let out a chuckle. “Why am I not surprised? I mean, I am surprised you can dance, but not that you ‘offered’ Kory your help. You ever made it to a presentation?”

“Roy did. I only helped at home.”

Dick chuckled again. He shook his head, beamed at Jason in relief though then his expression sobered. “Why do you think this will backfire on you? What do you think will happen? … What are you afraid of?”

“I´m not afraid,” Jason retorted quickly.

Dick raised an eyebrow, smoothed out Jason´s brow once more. “What is it?” he asked again.

It took time, one and a half songs to be precise, but finally Jason sighed, then spoke. “What… guarantee do I have that you won´t end up choosing Kent? What if along the way you discover that you don´t love me, that you only liked me, and that Kent is really the guy you like and want? You may be talking stuff right now Dick, but our thoughts and ideas change overtime. What if… if I put too much into this… into _you_ and it all ends up being for nothing?”

Dick blinked, almost stopped dancing, but he managed to keep moving his feet, and another song and a half went by. When a more upbeat and faster song began, Dick stopped moving, pressed his palm against Jason´s cheek this time.

“I know you have no reason to believe me, but I will say it anyway, and I will do everything I can so you do believe me someday, so you give me the chance to prove it to you. I love Conner, and I love you. I am in love with you both, I don´t have a preference for either, I don´t think he´s better than you, I don’t want him more than you, and if we do this, you have to learn and do that too. You can´t, for example, just dance with me, or just with Conner,” Dick explained with a light shrug. “In poly relationships, we all love the same, we all matter the same, we all deserve the same. I know that´s hard enough between a couple, no doubt will it be harder between three people, but that´s what you have to remember. If we´re a threesome, we all love and care for each other the same, we don´t play favorites, and it´s not like you´ll get half the attention than people get in a monogamous relationship. You´ll get twice the love, you know? I know it´s hard to believe and understand, but keeping an open mind, does it seem like a bad idea to you?”

Jason frowned, stopped doing it before Dick could smooth it out once more. After a couple of minutes, he shook his head. “I suppose it isn’t that bad,” he admitted.

Dick smiled at him. Eventually, Jason smiled back, pressed their bodies closer together. “Now let´s stop swaying and let´s dance, Dickie. I´m not going to lose against Kent.”

“ _Jason_ , I already told you…” But before Dick could finish talking, he was being spun around, pushed away, then pulled back and tight against Jason´s chest, then swaying before being spun around again.

He ended up in shock, and actually a bit dizzy, but when he met Jason´s eyes and saw nothing but a challenge in them, he grinned, tilted his chin forward and regained his balance. The next time he was pulled back against Jason´s chest, he stayed there longer than he should.

“You want to dance?” he asked amused. “Let´s dance then, Todd.”

Dick had had fun with Conner, despite his worry about Jason and the man who had been looking at him from the table. It had been fun to teach Conner how to dance, it had felt good to let Conner lead later on. It had felt amazing to feel almost every inch of Conner´s voice pressed against his ear, to feel the hands wondering down his back and waist, being close enough to kiss but not doing it had been exhilarating when Dick had been wanting to kiss him since they met.

The situation with Jason was no different, if anything, the only difference was that dancing with Jason was a competition, in a way, a continuous back and forth that had him laughing and rolling his hips, exaggerating his movements and batting his eyelashes. It was fun until he heard the first whispers come from behind him. After he heard them, he became even more distracted than when he was dancing with Conner.

At first it was one word, one single word emitted by a drunken voice, a word meant to sting, one that was said closer than it should have.

“Whore.”

Dick heard it, knew the word was meant to be heard, and he also had no problem figuring out who had said it and who it was for. When had the man and his friends moved from the table to the dance floor?

“Whore,” the voice came a second time when the song playing hit a low point. “Whore,” the voice said once more when the song ended, and this time it was followed by snorts, giggles and a couple catcalls.

“Dick.”

Dick looked back at Jason without even realizing he had been scanning the crowd over Jason´s back and on both sides of them. He blinked, realized he´d stopped moving, and went back to dancing, or at least swaying. “Yeah. Sorry. I spaced out for a bit there.”

Jason narrowed his eyes, but he followed Dick´s movements. “I heard it too, you know. Whoever that piece of shit is, he´s already way too drunk and doing really stupid stuff.”

Dick stared, the nodded. “Yeah.”

“Still, that´s no excuse for him to call anyone a whore.”

Dick nodded again. Jason´s eyes narrowed even more, though he made no further comment about the subject. They kept dancing, managed to get through two more songs before the voice rang out again, louder this time, and not just yelling one word.

“Whores. Come in all shapes and sizes, don´t they? Always gotta be the pretty ones though, huh? They like to ignore. Pretend. But in the end they´re still whores. Why they play hard to get, who knows.” And there were drunken laughs, more catcalls, more muttered insults Dick couldn’t make out.

Jason seemed to hesitate for a second, and Dick tried to ignore the voice, the words themselves to focus back on Jason, on dancing, on not ruining the mood. He held Jason´s hand tighter, dug the fingers of the other hand in the broad shoulder covered by leather. He took a deep breath, tried to drown out everything but the music.

“And it´s real funny, y´know? Downright hil… hilarious. Cruel even. You see these people, real pretty, real hot, the type of people you didn’t talk to back in high school ´cause they were the popular kids. The nice, neat and perfect kids. That´s what they looked like back then. Here in college? Y´learn those bitches are actually, you guessed it, complete and utter sluts.”

Dick stepped on Jason´s foot, felt a pang of shame course through his body. He apologized in a rather quiet tone, kept his gaze on the hollow of Jason´s throat and that place alone.

Jason was silent for a second, then spoke. “This idiot sure has a stick up his ass. Wonder who hurt his big and tough macho man ego.”

Dick stepped on his own foot, stumbled, would have fallen if it weren´t for Jason´s arms holding him tight and secure. He felt another wave of shame hit him, and he closed his eyes. “Yeah,” was all he said.

Jason went silent again, though not before he mumbled something Dick didn´t quite catch.

“And. You´d think this applies only to girls? But no man, oh no. See, sometimes y´see this real cute dude. With the best ass you ever seen. But he´s with another dude already. And yet you offer him a drink, the most expensive the fuckin´ place has to offer. And he turns you down. And for a minute you think, oh, maybe the dude is a good dude. But then he´s with another dude. So what the fuck man? Can´t help but hate that sort of people.”

Dick froze, and that was all it took. Before he knew it, Jason had let him go and had taken several steps forward, shoulders squared, hands balled into fists.

“You want to step away from your disgusting group of friends and say that where I can see you clearly, you motherfucking twat?” Jason outright growled, and zeroed in on the man that had been sitting at the table. No wonder Dick hadn’t been able to see him, he´d been looking in the opposite direction.

“Jason,” he said, and took a step forward, laid his hand on Jason´s forearm, but he was quickly shaken off.

“Didn’t you hear me? Because I heard you, and if you´re going to talk shit, get away from your little friends and come say all that crap to my face, I´m right here.”

Dick´s eyes widened, and he tried to grab Jason´s arm again. “Jason, calm down, let´s just…”

“You´re going to let this thing talk trash about you, fine, but I´m not going to let him do it. If he has the balls to go around whining and throwing shade, he has the balls to come and say it in front of me.”

“Jason, it´s okay. It´s not the first time someone calls me a whore, or a slut,” he tried again.

At that Jason froze, stopped glaring at the man and turned to him. “What?”

“I said… I said it wasn’t the first time someone called me a whore, or a slut. It´s happened before, so you really don’t have to…”

“They call you that because you _are_ one!” the man interrupted, then scoffed. “Fucking man slut,” he added, sniggering.

A fist connected with the man´s face hard enough that the man ended up spinning where he stood, there was another punch that sent him spinning the opposite way, and Jason and Dick were left staring in utter surprise at the man until Jason turned and found Conner standing next to them, face stony, hand still fisted.

“I believe you owe Todd and me several explanations, Dick,” he said, ignoring the fact that people had begun forming a circle around him, also ignoring the now cursing man that was almost yelling into his face.

“I…” Dick began, but Conner shook his head, took a step back and raised an eyebrow at Jason. Dick saw a message being sent just by the exchange of glances, though the meaning escaped him. It didn´t escape Jason, however, given he gave a fierce and tight grin.

“My pleasure,” he said, took another step forward, and as his smile widened, he drove his fist into the guy´s stomach. When he doubled over, Jason grabbed his head and brought his knee upwards. There was an ugly mushy sound of what could be a nose breaking, and then Conner had taken Dick´s hand, was grabbing Jason by the sleeve of his jacket and was pulling them towards the door as people gasped and circled the man, who was now on the floor screaming loud enough to be heard over the music.

“Nice hits,” Jason commented as the crowd parted and they reached the door, where they managed to sneak past the bouncers without any problem. “Solid, and with only one arm. Cool.”

“Batting and pitching arm,” Conner said with a shrug, then nodded. “Pretty good combo you threw back there too. Classic, yet powerful and too effective for comfort. Damaging cartilage with just one punch? Nice.”

“I took MMA all through high school and my first year of university. Football training took priority since then, but I still make the team attend classes every once in a while and practice there.”

They stepped out into the rather quiet and calm street. Conner nodded again. Jason nodded in return. They smiled at each other. Dick gaped.

“What… what… the hell!” he managed to say, sounding out of breath. “What just… what just happened?”

The smile on their faces disappeared, and Dick found himself pinned by two sharp and disapproving glances.

“What just happened? We kicked that guy´s ass – well, if I´d had it my way I would have literally kicked him to the curb – because _you_ didn´t, and he was talking shit about you and you were letting him,” Jason said.

“I wasn’t…”

“Yes, you were letting him treat you in a very inappropriate manner,” Conner said with a frown. “He was using a very vulgar term for you, and you said nothing, you did nothing.”

“Well, like I said, it wasn’t the first time someone called me…”

“Who was it?” Jason interrupted, eyes narrowing. Conner raised an eyebrow, crossed his arms. They both went back to piercing them with their looks, and Dick felt his tongue stick to the roof of his mouth. All right, maybe using that as an excuse hadn’t been the best idea.

“I´m not getting out of this without spilling my guts, am I?” he said.

“No,” was all Conner said.

Jason shook his head. “Being called a whore and a slut isn’t something to be accepted and taken in stride, Grayson. Letting it pass, allowing assholes to call you that, it isn’t okay. It´s not okay, it´s not normal for people to call each other that, yet you seem to think it is normal, that it is all right.”

“What happened, Dick?” Conner asked, voice soft. “Who called you a whore before? Why did you let that person do it?”

Dick tried to smile, prepared himself to try and deflect the situation despite having been told already that there was no way to deflect it. He gave up after several minutes went by and the intensity of his two… possible boyfriends´? Friends´? gazes didn’t waver.

He let out a light groan, hung his head, rubbed the back of his neck and tried to figure out the best way to say it. He mulled the situation and his words over in his mind, then groaned again, raised his head.

“My junior year at Gotham Academy, a new teacher joined the staff. He taught Advanced Calculus and Advanced Algebra, which were courses I took since my second year at school. He was… nice, I guess, at least at first, halfway into the school year, he…” Dick shrugged, wrinkled his nose.

Conner´s eyes had widened. Jason had tensed up, and Dick knew what they were thinking, couldn’t help but give an awkward laugh. “No, please don´t look so alarmed. He never touched me, he never did anything to me physically. He did get… creepy. He offered me private tutoring, which was pretty dumb because I took those courses as electives not to just get the credit but because I´ve always enjoyed math. When that didn’t work he got… bolder. Creepier. He´d look at me too long, ask me to help with stuff when class was over, and he even told me once straight up that he wanted to take me out for dinner and something more.”

Dick shivered at the memory, pursed his lips, ignored the way Jason and Conner seemed to have step closer to him. “I said no, of course. I told him no. I told him I wasn’t interested. I didn’t want to date anyone, let alone one of my teachers who was at least twice my age, and I told him that. He appeared to take it quite well, which looking back should have been a warning in itself. He stopped asking me to help him with stuff after school, he stopped staring at me, he stopped coming over to check on my work while I was in class. He didn’t assign me extra homework, he didn’t call me out in class, he didn’t ask me to come to the board, he didn’t sabotage my grades… and I thought… hey, maybe he really did understand and realized what he wanted was… inappropriate.”

“Which is why you never told anybody and why you never reported him,” Jason guessed.

Dick shrugged. “It seemed to be over. He behaved, we both pretended nothing had happened, and I could keep on enjoying my time at school. It really seemed to be over.”

“Until he started talking shit about you?”

“Until he started talking shit to me about… well, me. Wally, he´s my best friend, I hope you two can meet him someday, and I share some traits, we are both very… open and comfortable with shows of physical affection, and we had this friend, Kaldur, who we dragged along with us. The three of us met in middle school, and while in high school Kaldur finally gave in and began being more affectionate. More often than not the three of us would have lunch together, Wally would take pictures all the time, we´d spend breaks together, you know, like any groups of friends do. Mr. Wilson began picking on that, he… he said very similar things to what the man said. Pretty people were bad and dangerous, pretty boys were the worst. Pretty faces hid rotten hearts. Pretty faces using excuses when they needed them. Pretty people pretending they weren´t sluts when they were, ignoring proposals and playing the victim when they were the… victimizers, I think those were the exact words he used.”

“And yet you didn’t report him or told anyone, did you?” Jason asked with a sigh.

“No.”

“Why?” Conner asked, though he looked like he already knew the answer.

“I didn’t think it was important to pay him any mind. I ignored him the rest of junior year, all my senior year. He didn’t do it every day or every week, and I thought maybe me ignoring him was working. I thought that by ignoring him it wouldn’t affect me, but… I guess it did. I guess it still does. Up until Jason said it, I hadn’t realized that while I hate being called a whore, I… had started to think of it as something common when it came to me.”

Jason shut his eyes, shook his head. “He´s a child, Kent. He really is a naive and dumb child that shouldn’t have made it out into the world on his own until someone gave him a wakeup call or wrapped him up in cotton or something.”

“Hey!”

“Agreed, but maybe that´s one of the reasons why we´re here, Todd. Maybe we are the ones who have to wrap him up in cotton and give him the wakeup call,” Conner said.

Dick looked offended. “I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself and dealing with my own problems,” he said.

Conner looked at him, then shook his head, then stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Dick, pulled him close and pressed their foreheads together. “I have to disagree, Dick. I think you are capable of and enjoy taking care of others, but I don’t think you´re good at looking out for yourself. I think that if this Wilson guy had harassed another student but you, any student but you, you would have had him fired within a week, that if the man inside the club had been insulting any other person but you, you would have broken the man´s nose. I think you´re good at protecting and caring for everyone but you, Dick Grayson.”

Dick´s eyes widened this time, and he felt the blush creep slowly up his cheeks. “That´s… that´s not true.”

“Yes, it is, but it´s okay. You and I take care of Jason, you and Jason take care of me and Jason and I take care of you, like we just did inside the club. You´re important to us, Dick, and we weren´t going to let him make you feel bad, or am I wrong, Todd?”

And as Conner spoke arms wrapped somewhat awkwardly around his waist, a warm wall was suddenly at his back, and he could feel Jason´s hot breath against his neck. “No way. Love yourself a bit more, will you, Dick? And you know if I have to be the one who says that, it´s because this is serious. We´ll take care of your naive and childish ass until you´re able to look after it on your own, got it?”

Dick didn’t respond right away. He took a moment to marvel at what was happening, what he was feeling. Conner stood in front of him: gentle, calm, soothing, and Jason stood behind: intense, firm, serious, and they both felt sweet and genuine with their arms around him, giving Dick a sense of warmth he hadn’t really thought was possible to feel, not to such a tremendous degree.

He closed his eyes, gave a small smile and found each of their hands, held them on his own, gave several soft squeezes.

“I love you,” he mumbled. “I love you both.”

He got no response, and to be honest, he hadn’t really been expecting one. Several minutes went by, and he enjoyed the little cocoon of warmth Jason and Conner offered up until Jason spoke.

“Please tell me that bastard is dead.”

Dick laughed. Conner rolled his eyes, but even he was smiling.

“He is,” Dick said. “He died two years ago. He was driving while drunk, ended up throwing his car and hence himself off a literal cliff. They… well, he went missing for two weeks before they found him. They never found the femur and several other bones.”

“I know people dying is not something one must find joy in, but in this case, at least we know he´ll never bother you or anyone else ever again,” Conner said.

Dick nodded, smiled. “Thank you, both of you, for all this. You have no idea how much it means to me and how happy it makes me to have the two of you here, and how much I appreciate your support.”

Dick felt Jason shrug, saw Conner doing the same.

“What are future boyfriends for?” Conner said, and even though Jason scoffed, he didn’t protest.

Dick´s smile widened. “Do you guys want to call it a night already? Or do you want to go grab some coffee before we head home?”

Jason scoffed again. Conner shook his head. “The night is still young, and this is just one club in the whole city. You still have some stamina left for more dancing, Todd?” he asked.

“I have more stamina than you think, and Dickie here owes me a good dance. He was too distracted in there for the both of us to fully enjoy the same.”

“He was also distracted when we danced. He owes me one dance too.” Conner smiled down at Dick. “Think you have enough energy left to make it up to us tonight?”

Dick´s laugh rang out loud, clear and… gleeful.

“I can go all night long,” he said, and pulled back a little so the two of them could catch his wink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um. What to say. I really dislike Slade, I always picture him as Dick´s biggest and only personal nightmare so... that´s why that happened LOL, and... I really haven´t got much more to say given this isn´t the whole thing LOL, but in case someone is still interested in this story, thanks so much for reading :D!
> 
> Btw, I have a [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/blakedawson76) now and I finally learned how to use it :D in case anyone wants to come say hi XD


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part two of... the last chapter XD. The boys head out to a quieter place so they can enjoy the rest of the evening, and Dick is a bad influence in the lives of the two captains

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here is the second part of the... other part LOL. There are a lot of things I want to say, but I guess it´s better at the end. What can´t wait, though, is thanking my lord-ress and savior Lorelain for her help again. She´s the best beta and friend evah, I love you <3 
> 
> Also, warning for bad attempt at smut. You´ve been warned XD

In retrospective and at first glance, it all started going down because of the Georgia Peach and the other drinks that followed. When first looking back, that´d be the most obvious and acceptable excuse, but in truth, it all started going down because Dick didn’t _push_.

After they left the first club, Dick held onto both their hands and began walking down the street, kept telling them about this little bar he went to whenever he wanted a rather calm place to chill and dance with friendly and in-control people. It was only three and a half blocks away from the previous place, and as they neared the bar, Dick gave them a bit of background on the place.

“You could say it´s like a safe haven for several people? It´s small, owned by an elderly couple and run by their son and his wife. They have open mic night twice a week, there are small groups playing live every once in a while and on Fridays they let the place change a little bit, dim the lights and play the young hormonal adults usually want to hear,” Dick informed.

“Why didn’t you choose to come here in the first place?” Jason muttered. “Sounds like a much safer and enjoyable place.”

“Because I´d already been there before. I wanted the place to be as neutral ground as possible… and since I go out and visit stores and restaurants and clubs a lot just because I like knowing my way around town… there weren’t a lot of neutral places left.”

Jason rolled his eyes. Conner seemed to think about it for a while, the nodded. “I think your idea worked out very well. Stupid people aside, we did manage to talk things through with Jason, and I assume you two also worked yourselves out?”

Dick smiled. Jason rolled his eyes again, but he nodded.

Conner gave a light smile of his own. “Then there´s nothing to complain about. Now that we are on better terms, and I think on the same page, we can enjoy what´s left of the night whether we are in a neutral place or not.”

Dick swung their hands, let out a laugh. “We´ll have fun, I promise.”

When they stepped inside the bar, the place was mostly full, and yet it didn’t give that impression. People were dancing to the upbeat and popular songs that came from nowhere and everywhere at the same time on the space on the further side of the room, others were sitting and laughing on the few couches and tables available, and others were talking and drinking at the bar. Though most of the people inside looked like they were in college, there were several groups of older friends and couples scattered all across the room.

“Family friendly?” Conner asked as Dick lead them to the bar.

“Couple-friendly, and friend chat-friendly, I´d say,” Dick said.

“Oh. I like this place already.”

“Right?” Dick smiled at the two of them over his shoulder, then finally released their hands when they reached the bar and waved to the man pouring drinks.

The bartender seemed to recognize Dick right away, and he made his way down to smile and greet him. “Good evening, Richard, it´s nice to have you back for club night.”

“Thanks, it´s nice to be back. There really isn’t a better place to spend Friday night.” Dick motioned to Jason and Conner. “I brought friends with me tonight. Jason, Conner, this is James, he´s the owner´s son and bartender. James, these are Conner and Jason.”

Conner and Jason mumbled their hellos. James smiled at them and nodded. “Nice to meet you two, I hope you have fun tonight.” He looked back at Dick. “So what will it be tonight?”

“Oh.” Dick´s eyes widened, and he turned to his two companions, looked slightly embarrassed. “Do you… would either of you mind if I… uh, have a couple of… drinks tonight?”

Jason and Conner exchanged glances. “Why would we?” Conner asked.

“You two don´t drink, and I don´t want to make you uncomfortable or bother you by drinking alcohol. I mean, James serves nonalcoholic stuff too so it isn´t a big deal if…”

“Dick, stop thinking about other people and get your damned drink,” Jason said, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Kent and I don’t drink because we choose not to, doesn’t mean we´re going to ban people from drinking around us or any of that stuff, right, Kent?”

“Of course not. Dick, I don’t drink because I´ve never wanted to. So far alcohol hasn’t been something I´ve wanted to try, plus our coach really prefers it if we don’t,” Conner said with a shrug.

“I don’t drink because I believe in setting a good example for my team,” Jason added. “Can´t really kick their asses for showing up to practice hungover if I´m hungover myself, can I?”

Dick stared at them with wide eyes for a couple of seconds, then laughed, shook his head and looked back at James. “I´ll have a Peach then,” he said.

“Georgia Peach coming up,” James said, giving a little salute before moving down to prepare the drink.

“Georgia Peach?” Conner echoed, and as Dick took a seat, both Jason and Conner leaned against the bar, gave him similar curious glances.

“Georgia Peach,” Dick replied with a shrug. “Peach schnapps, orange juice, grenadine, really fruity and bright type of drink…”

“Just like you,” Conner said.

Jason snickered, then spoke. “Why am I not surprised you seem to like the sweet and colorful type of drinks?”

“Because you´ve seen me eat too many sweet stuff?” Dick laughed. “I don´t know, I just prefer cocktails over the usual drinks college boys ask for. The classic whiskey on the rocks and such? Not my thing. The Georgia Peach is my favorite, but I really like the Blue Long Island too. That one´s a lot stronger though, not the best to start with.”

“Do you drink often?” Conner asked.

“Do I get blackout drunk to the point of having a hungover for the next month and not remembering the last five years of my life? No, never. Our coach and the rules don´t allow that. Do I stop by every two or three weeks to have a drink? Since I discovered this place last year, yes, as long as we´re not in season.”

Jason´s eyebrows went up, and Conner looked a bit surprised. Dick didn’t know what to make of their reactions, so he offered them a smile. His drink arrived soon after, and Dick began sipping on it slowly, quietly, as he engaged in conversation with the two of them about random topics, which was something both Jason and Conner had become used to. He didn’t flaunt the drink. He didn’t offer them a taste. He didn’t make any sound that would somehow allude to how good the drink was, he even tried to keep his smiles after tasting it as subtle as possible. Dick didn’t push or pressure either of them on anything regarding the drink, but after a good twenty minutes of talking, the glass almost empty and the water beads still sliding down the glass, Conner caved.

“May I try it?” he asked.

Dick hesitated, then held out the glass. Conner sipped… and he let out the softest of groans that surprised even him.

Dick and Jason ended up staring at him with wide eyes, and Conner frowned at them, took another sip, this one bigger. “This actually tastes better than… what I thought alcohol would taste like,” he admitted.

“Well, I´m sure the whiskey inside the drink would taste quite different by itself, but that´s what´s fun about cocktails,” Dick said. “You can mix different flavors to soften up the sting of the alcohol, and you can relax while not losing consciousness right away,” Dick told him with a smile.

Conner´s brown furrowed, and Jason took the opportunity to snatch the glass. “Can I?”

“Be my guest.”

Jason stirred the drink with the straw, stared at it for a couple of seconds, then drank straight from the glass. He almost moaned, managed to swallow the sound, then gave a thumbs up… with both hands.

Conner snorted. Dick laughed. “Pretty good, huh?”

“Pretty sweet, kind of light. Perfect to cool down and enjoy a night out.”

“Which is why we´re here tonight, and the reason why I think I´ll have one,” Conner said, and waved the bartender over. Before either Jason or Dick could comment on it, he gave them a look. “I´m not going to pass out, but those little sips were delicious, and one or two drinks I believe I can allow myself.”

Dick shook his head, laughing. Jason was quiet for a few seconds, but when the bartender arrived, he sighed. “You know what? I´m taking a break from being a good captain tonight. Two other Georgia Peaches please… or three? Dick?”

“Yes, three more, James,” Dick said.

And that´s how it started. After the Peaches were gone, Conner asked Dick for recommendations, Dick asked James, who brought over a little card, and Conner ordered a round of Manhattans, which was followed by Jason´s order of Black Eyed Susans. By the time the Black Eyed Susans were gone and James´ wife recommendation of Angry Pirates arrived, the three of them had moved on to one of the couches on the quieter side of the bar, where they had a perfect view of the still-full dance floor.

Needless to say, they had given up dancing any more that night by the time the Pirates arrived, and by the time they downed those and Dick said this had to be their last drink and ordered the Blue Long Islands, the three of them were laughing at anything anyone said, sprawled all over the couch and staring either at the roof or at the dance floor.

“I now see why a lot of people do dangerous stuff while drunk,” Conner said.

“We´re not drunk. We´re tipsy,” Jason protested.

“Then you can hold your alcohol much better than I can, because I´m pretty sure I´m drunk, Todd. But as I was saying, I see why people pull stunts while drunk. You feel inhibited, free, light and… did I already say inhibited?”

“Yes.”

Conner grunted, then sat up straight and turned to Dick, who sat between them on the couch humming the song currently playing under his breath, hands over his stomach, cheeks rosy.

“Dick?”

“Yeah?”

“You said before that I couldn’t kiss you because Todd didn’t know, and he had to know before I could do it. He´s here now. If I say I want to kiss you, does that count as him knowing?”

Dick tried to straighten in his seat. He blinked owlishly at Conner, then turned too Jason, pursed his lips. “I… I think so?”

“Good. Todd, can I have the first kiss?”

Jason blinked at him too, rubbed a hand over his face, then blinked again. “You two haven’t kissed?”

“No.”

“I haven’t kissed either of you,” Dick said, pointing his index fingers at each of them. “Kissing one of you before I asked you to give this threesome a chance would have been cheating, and I didn’t want to do that. I´d never do that. Because poly relationships don´t work that way, you know? It´s important for everyone to know what´s going on. And to be okay with it. No hidden agendas. Those aren´t good, they hurt the relationship in the long and short run. I mean. Short and long run. Yeah, in both. So, it wasn´t a good idea, but I wanted to kiss you guys and climb all over you like a monkey since I met you. Make no mistake on that. I still want to do that.”

Jason groaned. “Kent, kiss him so he´ll stop rambling, will you?”

Dick frowned, opened his mouth to protest, but before he could do it, Conner was leaning over him, cupping his face between his hands and pressing their lips together.

Dick´s brain had been muddy to begin with, but the moment Conner kissed him, it all but stopped working. He heard himself moan, felt more heat rush to his face, and almost immediately he was moving his lips against Conner´s, pressing one of his palms against the back of Conner´s hand, tangling his free fingers in the other man´s shirt and pulling him close, tongue flicking out until he could feel Conner´s hot breath, and he didn’t hesitate when slipping his tongue into Conner´s mouth, exploring, tasting slowly, deeply. The kiss was languid, yet bold, and they were both gasping and letting out rather inconvenient sounds by the time the kiss ended. They stared at each other in silence for a couple of seconds before Dick felt a hand on his shoulder, and then he was being pulled back, to the other side, and Jason´s eyes were suddenly in front of him, pupils blown, turquoise eyes dark, and then Jason was kissing him, and it felt as glorious as it had felt to kiss Conner.

Jason´s tongue slipped into his mouth this time, and Dick groaned, melted against the chest pressed to his back, brought a hand up to tangle it in Jason´s hair. This kiss was also deep, full of exploration, but it was fiercer than Conner´s. Their tongues touched, or rather clashed, their lips moved and pressed hard against each other, and whatever sound was it that Jason let out, Dick swallowed it.

Jason pulled back first with a gasp, leaned against the couch, a hand over his eyes. Dick gasped as well, blinked, then his head spun, but before his back hit the couch, there was an arm around his shoulder, another solid chest against his back. He stayed still for a moment, then relaxed and leaned his head against Conner´s shoulder.

“That did not just happen,” Jason wheezed. “That kiss didn’t just feel…”

“Like the best kiss you´ve ever gotten?”

“Yes. I mean. No. No. Yes… I´m blaming this on the drinks.”

“I´m blaming the fireworks on the simple fact that I´ve wanted to kiss Dick for weeks now, and he´s a good kisser, and that´s enough for me.”

“You saw fireworks?”

“Didn’t you?”

Jason didn’t reply. Dick laughed, turned his head to stare at Conner´s profile. “I did. I saw fireworks, and stars.  You´re a really good kisser too, Conner. Jason was magical, he kisses like he lives, you know? All intensity and passion. You two should kiss each other.”

Conner raised a hand, rubbed his thumb over Dick´s lips. “You would like to see that wouldn’t you?”

“Mm-hmm. As much as Jason liked seeing us kiss. That or he was jealous, maybe both?”

“Oh my God, Richard, you´re not tipsy, you´re downright drunk. You don´t babble this much when sober,” Jason muttered, but he was clearly blushing, and he didn’t deny anything Dick had said.

“I´m not drunk, not on alcohol anyway,” Dick protested. “I think your kisses left me even more affected that I thought. Can we kiss again? Pretty please? I swear they gave me more of a buzz than the drinks.”

Jason scooted closer, spread his arm out on the back of the coach and leaned in closer. “Who are you asking?”

“You. Conner. Both. I want to kiss you both again, and again. I didn’t think it would affect me this much but it did. Oh no. I´m babbling even more. What did the two of you do?”

That got the other two men laughing, and Conner bent down to press their lips together, followed by a little peck from Jason, and that was the most they could do, because their Blue Long Islands arrived, and the three of them reached for their drinks.

“After we drink this we´re going home,” Dick announced as he took his glass. “And I don’t think I mean that in a ‘each person to their apartment’ way.”

“Don’t you?” Conner asked with amusement, passing Jason his drink and then picking up his own glass. “Then how do you mean it?”

“Am I a slut if I say, I know you know how I mean it?”

“You´re not a slut, stop saying that,” Jason scolded. “Saying that just makes you sound like you´re horny.”

“Oh. But I am. Horny I mean. I´m telling you those simple kisses gave me a buzz. It´s like now I can finally stop pretending I haven’t been fantasizing about being in bed with you. I really want to kiss you guys again and again, and after I´m done with this drink, I´ll want to do a lot more stuff. Is that… okay? I know it´d be quite a drastic change since those were literally our first kisses, and if you two really want to go back to your apartments after this, it´s really not a problem.” Dick stopped talking, breathed in slowly, but before he could start rambling again, Jason kissed him, and it felt even better than before.

“I´ll admit to wanting your naked ass on my bed sooner rather than later, all right? That I´ll admit. What about you, Kent?”

“I´ve wanted him spread out in my bed too. I don’t think I want to go home alone after tonight.”

“Are we going to figure out the sexual stuff tonight, then, Kent? At least in part?”

“I say we do figure it out.” Conner kissed Dick, bit his lower lip softly. “Shall we chug this down and see what happens later?”

Dick could barely talk, he was that embarrassed and ecstatic and incredulous, all at the same time.

“Let´s,” he said, and when Dick drank straight from the glass, Conner and Jason followed.

 

* * *

 

 

 Conner noticed Jason´s nervousness grow as they approached Dick´s apartment, which was the one closest to the bar and the place they had agreed to go to. Despite feeling too light and funny for comfort, he wasn’t completely gone, and while Dick, who half-walked half-jumped all the way to the apartment, didn’t seem to notice the way Jason seemed to tense up more the closer they got to his place, Conner did. He also noticed the set of his jaw, how his hands seemed to be fisted inside the pockets of his jacket. He looked angry, but Conner got the impression that wasn’t quite it.

“There´s still time to think about this,” he offered quietly as Dick bounced up the stairs mumbling something about elevators.

Jason walked slowly up the steps, and Conner followed the pace. “There´s nothing to think about, Kent.”

“Do you really want me to analyze you again, Todd? Repeat what I said about bullshitting me? And you know I don’t mean to sound arrogant when I say that.”

Jason´s left eye twitched, and he turned to glare at Conner, but the glare didn’t last under the weight of the dark blue-grey eyes, and Jason looked away, clicked his tongue. “I was beginning to like you, but you really are as annoying as I remember,” he muttered.

Conner stopped walking and laid a hand on Jason´s arm, used the momentum so they ended up facing each other. “If you´re having second thoughts about this, it´s fine, Todd. Nothing´s written in stone, and despite what it looks like, I´m sure Dick will understand.”

“No. That´s not it. You don´t understand.”

“Then _explain_ it to me. I see how you´re acting, but I don´t know why. A mind reader, I am not.”

Jason´s jaw worked, and his eyes darted nervously around the flight of stairs. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “I…” he began, stopped, sighed, then took a deep breath. “I don´t know how we´re going to do this, okay?”

Conner frowned. “Have a relationship? Date?”

“No. No, I´m talking about this, right now. The sex. I don´t know what I´m supposed to do, what I can or can´t do, if there are rules even for this.” Jason bit his lower lip, frowned, the rubbed his temples with the tips of his fingers. “I… I´ve had a threesome before, all right? There, I said it. But it wasn’t with two guys, it was with a guy in a girl.” He wrinkled his nose, raised a hand to rub the back of his neck. “I… I knew how it was going to happen, I… I knew how it was going to work out.”

Conner tilted his head, frowned, and thought about it, wondering what that mean. The realization came soon after, along with a blush. “Vaginal and anal sex.”

Jason immediately looked like he wanted the earth to swallow him, or rather, to swallow Conner and never spit him back up. After a few moments of flustering, though, he calmed down enough to nod. “I mean, I know there are many other things for people try in bed, there are other options, not just… intercourse, but I don´t know… I don´t _know_ what we´re going to do.”

“And that bothers you,” Conner concluded.

“Dick is the type of person who sits back and goes with the flow, someone who dives into things head on and worries about the consequences later. I´m not. I need to have some knowledge beforehand, I need to know what I´m diving into before I jump into it. Look, Kent, it´s not that I don´t want to have sex tonight, it´s not that… that it didn’t… turn me on to watch you two kiss and interact, but without knowing how we´re going to… distribute ourselves…”

Conner nodded, laid his hand on Jason´s shoulder. “I can sort of understand. You at least have some sort of experience with threesomes, so try to relax a little. Let´s take it slow, let´s talk about what we want to do and how. I don’t think Dick is going to tie us down and force us into anything anyway.”

Jason snorted, looked at the hand on his shoulder. “And what about what you want to do, Kent? Are you having second thoughts? Are you even feeling anything at all?”

Conner dropped his arm, gave him a rather disappointed look. “What am I, a mannequin?”

“You kind of act like one,” Jason said, eyes narrowing. “Always… trying to keep things cool, always working out what´s best for others, just like Dick does. You told Dick he wasn’t good at taking care of himself, but are _you_?”

Conner breathed a laugh, then shrugged. “Seven years ago I wouldn’t care about you, Todd. I´d dare say I´d even have trouble caring for Dick. Seven years ago I would have tried to punch the living lights out of you for being complicated and I would have said some terrible things to Dick by proposing what he did.”

“… What does that mean?”

“It means that seven years have passed since I was a really angry, sulky and petulant teen who only focused on himself and what he felt. I´m not that kid anymore, and the man I strive to be is someone better than that kid, someone who doesn’t think anger and hot-headedness are the cause of and answer to everything. I´ve learned that being at peace with myself and others is better, and I´ve learned to compromise. It´s not that I don´t feel, Todd, it´s not that whatever happens is fine with me, it´s the fact that I understand we´re three different people and we need to compromise. Do I still want Dick for myself? Yes, a part of me still does, but unlike the kid I used to be, I´m not going to let those desires and feelings take over. Does that many any sense?”

Jason stared at him in silence for three full minutes, looking away only because Dick appeared at the top of the stairs protesting the two of them weren´t hurrying up.

“Guess I need to mature and get over my own shit too,” he said with a sigh.

“Isn´t that what I told you earlier tonight?” Conner asked with the smallest yet most annoying shit-eating grin Jason had ever seen.

“I hate you. I hate you now and I always will,” Jason said, but he was smiling, and he shoved at Conner´s shoulder as the two of them went up the stairs.

Conner was laughing by the time they stepped into Dick´s apartment, and after that, despite him telling Jason they could take it slow, they didn´t exactly do that.

Despite the clear and level-headed conversation he and Jason had just had, Conner couldn’t really tell how it happened, all he could recall clearly before he hit the bed, naked, with an equally naked Dick smiling on top of him were those bright and big blue eyes, those lips moving and saying something.

He didn’t have time to think about what he´d just missed or at what point his clothes had come off, because Dick was gone in a second, and then a very naked Jason landed next to him, Dick on top, and smiled at him again.

“I have no idea on how to go on about this,” Dick admitted. “But I really hope the three of us enjoy the night, I hope you two have a good time… I hope what we do tonight is good enough to make you guys come.”

Jason groaned. “You know, after Kent´s talk I was all for sitting you down and asking what each of us is supposed to do, but after that really corny and unnecessary speech… I´m going to take my chances.” And without further word Jason grabbed Dick´s chin between his fingers and pulled him down for a kiss.

Conner felt something flutter in his stomach at the sight, and he ended propping himself up on one elbow, staying quiet and just enjoying the view. If he was honest, he kind of liked it. While at the moment he wasn’t too sure if he wanted to kiss Jason himself, he liked seeing Dick kissing him, liked the blush it brought to his cheeks, the soft and alluring sounds it drew from him, and he didn’t mind seeing Jason´s hands wander over Dick´s shoulders, his back, down to cup the ass Conner had stared at one too many times already through the clothes. He didn’t mind, but he also wanted to participate.

He touched Dick´s shoulder gently after who knew how many kisses, and Dick raised his head, Conner was yet again met by those deep blue eyes, and then Dick was kissing him, tangling his fingers in his hair and leaning in closer, moaning against his mouth.

His hands rose to grab onto Dick´s hair as well, and he let out a groan of his own, kissed him sloppily, deeply, but knowing he could do more now, kissing him wasn’t enough.

He pulled back for a second, found his gaze drawn downwards, found Jason with his eyes closed pressing his lips against Dick´s chest, hands holding his hips, making his way down to his flat abdomen and…

Conner shuddered at the thought, leaned back in and trailed his own lips from Dick´s cheek down to his chin to his neck, stayed there for a while, licking his way up and down, feeling his skin prickle at the sounds that came from Dick´s throat, the way his pulse felt under his tongue. Conner liked hearing those sounds, Conner liked provoking those sounds, and he also liked the sounds that spilled from Jason´s lips. It all sent shivers down his spine, made the fluttering in his stomach grow, made his very exposed cock stand up more at attention.

“Kent,” Jason mumbled, and Conner opened his eyes without even realizing he´d closed them, looked down to meet Jason´s gaze, and they exchanged a silent message much like they had at the club. Before they could go through with it, though, Dick pulled back and smiled at them both, lips swollen, eyes shiny, face completely red, and gave them a shaky smile.

“Oh no you don´t,” he said, then sat up, laid a hand on each of their chests. “I´m not letting this chance go so easily. I have you two in my bed right now, I want to see and taste a bit before I completely lose my mind.” And then Dick was moving, sliding further down the bed, sliding a leg over Conner and sitting on top of him, grinning before leaning in for a kiss, one Conner returned hastily, hungrily, shivering as Dick´s hands moved from his cheeks down to his chest, fingertips grazing every bit of exposed skin, the firm lines of his chest, the light dips that were his abs, his hips, and soon Dick´s lips were where his fingers had been, pressing against his chest, leaving a trail of butterfly-light kisses as his hands wandered even lower.

Conner closed his eyes, dug his fingers into the bedsheets and allowed himself to just sit back and enjoy the  feel of the soft hands on him, the warm and wet lips tracing his skin, nibbling at his sides, tongue dipping into his belly button, palms smoothing over his legs, the inside of his thighs, and then those long and nimble fingers were circling his erection oh so gently, softly, then the fingers started moving up and down, and he raised his head, opened his eyes in time to see Dick kneeling between his legs, lips parting, tongue flicking out to touch just the tip.

He groaned loud and guttural, did his best to keep his eyes open as Dick continued to stroke him slowly, tongue barely touching him, his mouth right there, and yet out of reach. Conner didn’t have that much experience when it came to sex, he didn’t have a lot of knowledge when it came to what he wanted, but in that moment, after what felt like an eternity in which Dick kept touching him with his fingers with that smile on his face and the tip of Conner´s cock so close to his mouth… Conner knew what he wanted.

“Dick,” he ground out, and if he sounded impatient…

Jason´s deep and throaty laugh came from Conner´s side, and he turned his head, couldn’t help but be surprised when he noticed Jason now laid on his side so he could face them, and that much like Dick and himself, his face was red, his pupils…

He looked down just to check, and let out a gasp at the sight of Jason stroking himself with slow and languid movements. His eyes moved upward out of reflex as he took the time to admire Jason´s own hard and muscled body, a body big enough to match what Jason held between his own fingers. _You´re handsome_ , he wanted to admit. _You´re big, all over._  

“Why are you laughing?” was what came out instead, his voice a strained whisper as Dick continued to masturbate and tease him.

Jason gave another laugh, this one deeper, held an embarrassed edge to it. “I´m watching him, watching you, and I wanted him to put you inside his mouth almost as much as you did, but he didn´t, because he´s a _tease_ and loves goofing around, don´t you, Dick?”

Dick´s answer was rather simple. He smiled at them, pressed Conner´s cock against his mouth. “I like the term foreplay better,” he said, and then he was sliding his lips over Conner, keeping his eyes on them both as he began taking it in, tongue moving, lips sucking.

Conner gasped, his hands fisted in the sheets, and that seemed to be exactly what Dick wanted, given he smiled with his mouth full and moved his head farther down, mouth parting more, licking along his shaft, and then moving back up, keeping only the tip between his teeth and sucking quick and hard.

“Damn it!” he hissed, and immediately raised a hand to cover his mouth. This time both Jason and Dick laughed, and Dick´s started moving his head up and down, eyes closed, saliva dripping from the corner of his lips and down his length at one point.

Conner pressed his lips tight, tried to hold back any sound or curse that might escape him, but he couldn’t, wouldn´t, not when he felt the light graze of teeth around him. His hips jerked once, twice, and he felt Dick´s mouth widen, felt the bobbing of his head shift as if to accommodate him better.

He stared down at Dick, marveled at the expression of sheer concentration and enjoyment on his face, followed the line of his neck to his shoulders, found one if his arms stretched out. He followed that arm, and another sound escaped him as he noticed Dick had replaced Jason´s fingers with his own, and now it was him who pumped Jason´s thick and long erection, those nimble fingers were the ones that now traveled up and down, seemed to squeeze every now and then, made sure to caress from the tip to the base in some rhythm Conner couldn’t quite make sense of.

He moved his gaze from Jason´s groin to his heaving chest, then his face, and he knew he blushed hard and fast as soon as he caught a sight of those half-lidded blue-green eyes, burning dark and deep, the small and apparently satisfied smile, the light tremble of his lips.

“Should we really be surprised he has a good enough coordination to actually look graceful while doing this?” Jason whispered, his words ending with a moan, and Conner was about to reply, but there was a light pop, and he looked back at Dick, saw him pulling back and wrapping his free hand around Conner length. He smiled through swollen and quite red lips, masturbated them both for a second before he was leaning over Jason, keeping his hand at the base and sealing his lips over Jason´s tip.

“While thank you,” Dick murmured, and then his palm and fingers were moving up and down Conner´s cock, the rhythm quicker and harder than he´d been doing, and he was swallowing Jason down without much hesitation.

Conner cursed. Jason downright growled, and he raised a hand, tangled his fingers in Dick´s hair right away. Conner saw as Jason tipped his head back, smiled, seemed to enjoy what Dick was doing with his mouth… at least for the first couple of minutes.

“Oh come on, bluebird, I´m not that kind of guy,” Jason said with a moan.

“Not too big on foreplay?” Dick asked, pulling away for a second and making Jason hiss out in protest.

“Not that much,” Jason replied.

Dick let out a laugh. “Roger that,” he said, then he leaned back in, and somewhat awed, Conner watched as Dick took Jason´s cock back into his mouth, except this time he didn’t stop at the tip, nor halfway down, but instead kept going, making Jason curse, his hips jerk, until his lips almost met Jason´s groin.

Dick grunted after a few seconds, Jason cursed much louder this time, and then Dick was pulling back, releasing Jason and gasping for air, face even redder than before, eyes beginning to tear up.

“Better?” Dick asked.

Jason snorted, then let out a hoarse laugh. Dick let out a small laugh of his own, and then he was moving forward, going down on Jason, stuffing his mouth with him, throat working, small gasp managing to escape him.

Conner watched because he couldn’t seem to tear his gaze away. It was… it was hot, seeing the two of them like this, it was arousing to see and hear how much Jason was enjoying himself, how his fingers tangled in Dick´s dark hair and how his hips moved. It was even more arousing to see Dick´s face, how genuinely happy he was with his mouth too full of someone else´s cock, how his own body trembled and yet the hand he had wrapped around Conner hadn’t even stopped moving. Dick was still in control, Dick was still aware of what he was doing and looking too graceful for comfort.

Conner didn´t quite like that.

He reached down to stop Dick´s hand, grabbing his wrist between his fingers and pushing the hand away gently, making Dick open his eyes and look at him rather surprised. He let Jason slip out with a soft wet sound and blinked, eyes shining, saliva trickling down his chin.

“Conner?” he asked.

Conner didn’t answer, only pulled Dick closer to him as he and Jason exchanged a glance. Jason smiled. “Need more attention, Kent?”

Conner shook his head, looked back at Dick, and Jason laughed. “I hear you,” he said, and he was rolling out from under Dick, standing next to the bed and assessing them both with a glance.

Dick leaned down to kiss Conner before rolling and ending up on the bed, closing his eyes and trying to steady his breathing. “I didn’t hear Conner say anything, but I think I understood anyway.” He cracked an eye open, gave the most impish smile. “Let´s take turns.”

Jason looked amused. “You sure you can handle that, Grayson?”

Dick rolled over, laid on his stomach and looked at them over his shoulder. “Try me,” he said, then held out his hand. “Come here, Conner.”

Conner took the offered hand, and Dick looked back at Jason. “Is this okay with you?”

“Just perfect. Can you slide farther down the bed? I think it´d be easier for everybody that way.”

Dick nodded, began sliding down the bed without letting go of Conner´s hand. He met the grey curious eyes and chuckled, face softening “You´ve never been with a guy before, have you?”

Conner thought about it, shook his head.

Dick ended with his knees on the floor, chest on the bed. “Kneel,” Dick said, and when Conner just blinked, Dick squeezed his hand. “Here, kneel on the bed, in front of me. You liked seeing me deep-throat Jason?” Conner might have blushed, he might have not, whatever he did, Dick laughed. “Come on, Conner.”

Conner did as he was told. He ended up kneeled on the bed, balancing his body on the mattress, holding out a hand in case he fell, but Dick´s hand, landed on his hip, and he kissed his belly, his other hip.

“Let´s see if _you_ like it, then,” he said, and then Dick was back to having his mouth stuffed and his eyes closed.

Conner couldn’t look anywhere else after that, couldn’t seem to focus on anything but Dick and what he was feeling. His mouth was wet and warm, swallowing Conner down without much problem, and when he pulled back to catch his breath Conner had enough time to admire his expressions better, longer, expressions that turned into damn near ecstasy when Jason knelt behind Dick, spread his legs and leaned in to cup and bite at the perfectly round cheeks, when Jason leaned in to caress his hole first with his fingers, then with his tongue.

Conner could see it all from where he was, from where he´d steadied himself with his fingers tangled in Dick´s hair. He could see Jason bending over Dick, nose buried between his ass, one of his hands hidden under his mouth, the other hand wrapped around and pumping his own cock. He could see the way Dick´s body reacted to every caress, every touch, could feel the way Dick´s throat worked, how the sounds he made were muffled and couldn’t quite make it out of his mouth.

“You taste close,” Dick whispered, pulling away for a second and kissing his thigh. He rolled his eyes up at Conner, licked his lips. “You liking it so far?”

“I´m loving it,” the words were out of his mouth before he could really think about what he was saying. He ran his fingers down Dick´s cheek, his lips, wiped off whatever it was hanging from his mouth. “What about you?”

Dick smiled, and then his eyes shut tight, there was the slightest flicker of pain on his face, and he went still, gasped.

“Dick?” Jason asked.

“I´m fine… I´m more than fine. Just… you said you weren´t a big fan of foreplay. I´m not either. Jason… put it in, fingers aren´t enough.”

Conner looked over at Jason just in time to see him withdrawing his fingers, glistening wet from what Conner guessed was lube, though he couldn’t think of where Jason could have found it. He got his answer soon after, when Jason picked up a bottle of baby oil from one side and rubbed it over himself, dropped a bit more down Dick´s ass before he rose and moved in closer, leaving a trail of kisses down Dick´s back before pressing against his opening.

“Bluebird…” Jason began.

Dick let out a frustrated sound and moved his own hips, letting out a deep and long moan as Jason slid inside. He gasped, he shivered, he bit his lip hard, and he let his head fall against Conner´s thigh again.

“Me?” he said, and looked up at Conner as he took Conner inside his mouth again. “I´m enjoying this too much.”

They figured out a rhythm after that, one that was mostly based on the sounds they made and the tremble of their bodies more than the movements itself. Jason grabbed Dick´s hips, thrust into him deep and fast with enough strength to make Dick tip forward, making him take every single inch of Conner into his mouth, his throat, and at one point Conner began thrusting his hips too, tipping Dick backwards, making him sink farther onto Jason´s shaft, making Dick moan, curse, fingers digging into the carpet.

Dick came first after having his own cock pumped only a few times, and Conner was a close second, spilling himself into Dick´s mouth, seeing what Dick couldn´t hold inside dribble down his lips to his chin, and Jason came last, pounding into Dick, leaving finger marks on his hips and ass, and when pulling out, seeing as his seed leaked out of Dick.

Conner wasn’t sure how much time went after that, or what was it exactly that Dick said, but soon enough, Dick was propping himself up again, smiling and throwing Conner onto the bed, reaching for the bottle of baby oil and kissing him as Jason positioned himself near the headboard.

“All night long,” Dick repeated, eyes sparkling.

 

* * *

 

 

Conner woke up because of his cell phone. He was pulled from a deep and peaceful sleep back to the land of the living by a ringtone he knew all too well. Before he even realized what he was doing, he had disentangled himself from around Dick and was searching for his phone on the floor. He hit the screen and brought it to his ear, was greeted by Jon´s cheerful morning voice and then Clark´s urgent tone. Clark needed to go into the office on a Saturday, emergency meeting _yet again_. Could Conner come pick Jon up soon? Only for a few hours.

“Yeah,” he said hoarsely, running a hand through his hair. “Yeah, give me twenty minutes, I´ll be right there to pick him up.”

He hung up, rubbed his face with his palms and then he looked back at the bed, found Dick deeply asleep, Jason sitting on the bed and leaning against the wall on the other side.

Conner wasn’t sure what to say.

“Have you been awake long?” he said after a couple of minutes had gone by.

Jason´s eyes flicked to him for a nanosecond, then to some unknown part of the room. “I guess. I´m an early riser.”

Conner nodded, waited for more. When Jason stayed quiet, he sighed. “Are you okay?”

“I´m fine.”

“Todd…”

“Don´t you dare analyze me first thing in the morning, Kent. I´m fine.”

“You don´t look fine,” Conner said simply. He began looking for his clothes, found most of them, and put them on. “Are you regretting any of this? You looked like you were having fun last night.”

“I was… I did.”

Conner waited again. He cleared his throat. “But?”

Jason rolled his eyes, frowned, ran a hand through his own hair like Conner had done only seconds ago. “I… I don´t know, okay? It´s early and I woke up feeling uneasy and I have no idea why. Was it because I regret fucking Dick with you until early morning? No. Don´t even start going there, okay? It´s not because of that.”

Conner waited, nodded. “Then?”

“I don´t know, all right? Give me time to work it out, or figure it out for that matter. Don´t freak out.”

Conner couldn’t help but nod once more. He picked the leather jacket from the floor and went to Jason´s side of the bed.

“All right. Will you stay here until Dick wakes up?”

“I think so. You have to go pick up your…?”

“Nephew. I´m sorry, I wouldn’t want to leave either of you like this, it looks like I´m running away…”

Jason rolled his eyes. “Go get your kid, Kent, I´ll stay until Dick wakes up to assure him you didn’t bail on him.”

“On you both.”

“… Yeah, on us. Maybe I´ll have more time to figure out what´s wrong with me now.”

“There´s nothing wrong with you, but I do hope you calm down soon,” Conner said, then put one knee on the bed and leaned in to kiss Dick goodbye. “Bye, Dick, I had a lot of fun last night. See you soon.”

He rose, faced Jason. “See you soon too, Todd, you know you can talk to me if you want to, I´ll always be happy to help out with what I can.” And without really thinking about what it would mean, without hesitating, Conner leaned down and pressed his lips to Jason´s in a soft and light kiss. “Have a great day, Todd.”

Conner had just stepped out of Dick´s room and was heading for the door when he heard a smirk and a pillow hit a wall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so these are gonna be long. Feel free to skip these notes XD
> 
> First, from the bottom of my heart i truly hope you enjoyed this chapter (well, both parts). I fought with it tooth and nail, there were several writing blocks going on while I wrote it, I nearly cried, I almost drove my bestie mad (I´m so sorry ToT) and well, I worked really hard on it, so I truly hope you enjoyed it 
> 
> Second, I´m terrible at writing smut, I´ll say it as many times as it takes because well, it´s true. So, I deeply apologize for my attempt at smut. I tried real hard, but I know it came out awkward anyways LOL 
> 
> Third, here at the end, Jason isn´t regretting anything. He´s actually overwhelmed because he did enjoy himself, maybe a bit more than he could ever think... so yeah, just a little clarification(?)
> 
> And fourh, thank you so, so, so, so, so much for reading! You have no idea how much it means to me that people actually liked this story *throws flowers

**Author's Note:**

> This will hopefully be a three parter, and it´s not a story about sex, but there will be some of that too of course. I wanted this story to come out as a real developing relationship, a threesome not only of lust but of something more, a threesome that could evolve into a full, wholesome and actual relationship that had to go through all the problems and awkward conversations and angst that a polyamourous relationship brings with itself. So, I hope it works out, I hope the pacing comes out okay, and that it is enjoyable :D As usual, my apologies for any grammar or spelling mistake
> 
> Thanks for giving this weird story a chance!


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